No Man's Land: First Contact
by CatalystCtrl98
Summary: FCW AU - Captured a year after first contact with the turians goes horribly wrong, a war-torn Shepard is forced to cast aside his differences and ally with the enigmatic leader of an unexpected resistance cell in order to stop a rogue Spectre from unleashing an ancient hell upon the galaxy. Cursing, violence, and an overall bleaker look at ME. M!Shepard/Solana
1. Prologue: Transgressions

_Prologue: Transgressions_

I am no stranger to tragedy. If anything, the two of us are like friends, meeting up with each other once in a while in a little cabin perched on a decrepit countryside to share a cup of coffee. The visits are always different, the most common being insidiously slow and sharp and stinging. The slow kind always does the most damage, twisting the knife in your gut like an enemy relishing your long-awaited death. I am no stranger to people trying to kill me. It's funny how quickly the world can burn around you, consuming everything dear to you, slowly but surely. _The ashes remain like a perfect memory_ , a song once put it so eloquently.

Someone always told me that stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. This time was no different. I am no stranger to animosity, given unto and received. That was my inevitable downfall. In the biology of all species, we're hard-wired to remember fear the most and fear we must . . . but it doesn't stop us from making the same mistakes.

Each government puts up their walls while outwardly smiling like an idiot over the ramparts. A show of cooperation is put out and the public consumes it. Politicians use this like their bread and butter for their own insidious version of McCarthyism. To their credit, the Alliance holds it at bay . . . if only to conceal the cracks in their foundation. Cerberus eliminated politics but they were subject to the same fatal flaw like the rest. They didn't understand. I did. The clashes told me they were limited to one side of a coin: heads. I know the other side is no stranger to it. That fear and hatred . . . I felt that once.

Every soldier I served with fought so hard, sacrificing what I once called humanity. They were true patriots, regardless of the legacy people thought they knew. Our choices come to hunt us in the dark like demons, leaving grunts like me forever fearing its resonance in time because there are no heroes in war. It creates beasts out of the ordinary, levelling and re-shaping the world as it sees fit like a toddler playing god.

There is no such thing as peace. Not in the constant celestial bombardment occurring throughout the vast expanse of the universe and certainly not in our brief existences. There is only blindness, information abandoned to the dusty recesses of our minds.

History honors our transgressions as a species. Nobody knows for sure why anyone of us were the ones to receive these gifts of self-awareness, this ability to do good and cause terrible harm. As we surged ever further into the unknown, the answer still lies out of-reach, now more than ever. Our actions are etched in the stone of the world regardless, squandered and bickered over by people who can do nothing more than bark at the moon, or however that human saying goes.

Sound like the rant of a typical villain? You're probably right. Like I said, there are no heroes in war.

And this is the story of one such war.

The First-Contact War.


	2. Chapter 1: Interrogation

**Disclaimer: It should go without saying but I do not own Mass Effect or its characters.**

 **A/N: In the good words of Nathan Drake: this is it, this is finally it. God, what's it taken to write this . . . Believe it or not, this single chapter took me the better part of a year to write. Logically, it should be pristine but it's far from it. I decided it was time to get it out there before . . . you know, writer's block. You be the judge.**

 **More notes at the bottom, if you care for that sort of stuff.**

* * *

 **Ch. 1: Interrogation**

 _A dead man once told me that things never get more real than down the barrel of a gun. From the first moment that corpses started hitting the ground, I knew what the cold and calculating bastard meant. At first, my naïve mind and body wondered how anybody could find any enjoyment out of killing another sentient being, even if it were insects like them. That very same rookie was seeking revenge of all things. It's a wonder how I didn't die sooner._

 _It wasn't just about the supposed rush of wiping the floor with their mandibles. My first warzone and my old C.O. told me the exact opposite. When you find yourself blown into a hole two meters below ground, a trench that would most likely become your grave, the famous "life-flashing before your eyes . . ." never hits you. Staring down the barrel of a hostile's gun, the little things of that short moment are the only things that become vivid. There's no time to re-think or reflect. It's not about if you're ready for death. You never truly are. The real question is: Are they? The people who love you?_

 _I thought I had nothing to lose except for my life. Everyone I loved was gone . . . or so I thought. Shanxi was where everything started for me. When the assignment cropped up, I knew I had to return, to come to terms with the phantoms among this hallowed ground. That's where the Skulls found me._

 **Shanxi, Turian 43** **rd** **Regiment Installation, December 16** **th** **, 2157**

 _14 months since First Contact_

"Now let's try that again."

The Turian leaned forward in his chair, his glinting predatory gaze piercing the near total darkness of the room. It was the only thing the soldier could see after the last hit besides stars.

"Tell me everything you know about Outpost Tempest, human, and I just might let you live."

The soldier glared into his interrogator's eyes, nothing but contempt written on his face. He only paused his dagger-like stare to spit the pool of blood in his mouth to the side. He wasn't going to give the enemy the satisfaction of seeing him in pain.

"Crawl back into whatever trench you were born in, _bird._ " He put as much emphasis on the slur as humanly possible.

The alien leaned back against the chair and did the closest approximation of a dejected sigh, his mandibles flaring outward like the star of some ancient monster flick. He lifted his hand to the flickering light mounted on the ceiling, flexing and studying his three-fingered hand.

"You know, we started filing our talons once we began our great civilization. It was used to show that we were no longer an animal. During wartime, we let them grow back naturally . . . for whenever it was needed."

Suddenly, his talons plunged down into the soldier's thigh with a sickening _squelch!_ The man grunted in pain and stifled a yell as the turian's talons raked aside his skin, sliding downward as if his flesh was made of butter. The turian leaned forward calmly, cocking his head to the side in mild derision as tiny red geysers erupted onto his talons. That same sickening wet sound followed the alien's retreating talons. It nearly made the man vomit. He let his head hang as he fought for consciousness, his vision fading in and out. The soldier could barely process the turian's next words.

"Your physiology is weak. Your flesh is inadequate. How did your people survive long enough for space travel?"

With some strength regained, the human lifted his head and tried to even his breathing. Focusing on his hatred for the turian in front of him was the only thing that dulled the pain.

"With a hell of a fight."

The outline of the turian's shadowy form started to shake vaguely before a cacophony of horrible sounds erupted within the four walls. The human flinched, his hair instantly acting on a vestigial reflex and standing on end. It took the soldier a few moments to understand what it was. Laughter, combined with the natural tremor in their species' voices. The final puzzle piece in his image as a sadistic demon.

"How much longer do you think your puny Alliance can hold out? Your species knows nothing about waging a galactic war."

The soldier snorted derisively.

"Puny? I'd say we've given your forces a run for their money," he said, ignoring the confused twitching of the turian's mandibles. The soldier decided to go another step further.

"You obviously don't know anything about us. I know we're new to this frontier but we're going to fight like hell to survive, to defend our own. We have come this far, and you'll be damn sure we're going to fight with tooth and nail to see another day. If you expect us to go quietly, your species is in for a rude awakening."

The turian regarded him calmly, casually wiping away the blood on his talons against his armor.

"Are you done? Give us the information we need or we'll begin testing that faith of yours."

"Sure, carve me up like a fine turkey all you want but you're getting nothing from me." He spat at the ground again, now mostly pent-up saliva than blood.

The alien's growl seemed to vibrate in the man's teeth, an ominous preview of what was to come.

"Testing my patience. That is very unwise."

His talons plunged down into his other unharmed leg. If anything, this one was much more excruciating than the last. A deafening yell rang out against the confines of the room as his flesh gave way and parted before the alien's daggers-for-talons.

This one left him brawling to stay awake. The blood, _his_ blood, began to plink down on the linoleum, drip by drip at a hypnotic rate. The sound of it should have been slight but it was like thunder to him, the embodiment of his energy slowly ebbing away. The lulling warmth of the pooling liquid coaxed him into unconsciousness. It must have lasted for only a few seconds because his dulled sense of touch felt something rapping against his skull.

"I'm not done with you yet," a murky voice came. The soldier's senses were returning slowly to him as well as the physical agony. He didn't dare look down at his legs to see what was left of them.

"Outpost Tempest, human! Where is it?"

"No," he groaned.

A blow landed underneath his left eye, plated alien knuckles digging and grating for bone. Even the chair rattled in protest with the force. A caustic metallic scent began to spread around the room.

"Tell me!"

"No!" he said more insistently.

The turian's claws raked apart the length of his face in one swift movement, blinding him with the spurt of blood. In those moments, it was more like xenomorph acid rather than blood, leaving molten trails of flesh across his cheek. The pain was so excruciating that even the muscles in his stomach twisted itself into a pretzel.

"TALK!"

"NOOOO!"

Before the turian could lay another talon on him, the door swung open, sending a wavering stream of golden light across the awful, peeling walls like the gates to heaven from hell. The soldier struggled to clear the bloody veil hindering his vision, blinking away furiously. He attempted to shoo away the blood trickling towards the edge of his lips but was forced to swallow the copper-flavored fluid. A volatile cocktail of sharp bile, mixed with rancid blood threatened to erupt all over his interrogator. Despite every frightened gulp of air he took to force it down, he felt like he was drowning. The turian knew he was going to crack, and by god, he was about to.

The only thing that stopped him from spilling the beans was the anticipation to an end of his torment. He managed to make out a figure framed in the doorway. It was a female turian, lacking the defining characteristic of crested horns. Immediately, the soldier's final bit of resilience escaped out of his chest with a puffy gasp for air.

 _Of course, it was a turian. How could it not be?_

The soldier watched, trying to keep his wits intact despite the fact that his whole body felt like it had been dipped in sulfuric acid.

She said something to his interrogator that he couldn't make out. The male made an almost imperceptible noise followed by a clear groan of disgust. He whispered something back to her and promptly rose from his chair.

"It seems that your comrades are here to liberate you. I'm sure I'll find someone a little more . . . responsive."

"Don't you dare touch-"

The alien produced a pistol the soldier hadn't seen before and pointed it at his head. At that point, he would have liked nothing better than to remain defiant under his scope to the very end, to deny the turian of his sickening gratification like a smug hero in the vids. Instead, he wiggled like a pathetic worm against the bonds but his strength had thinned to a hair long ago. If turians could grin, that's what his interrogator did. Even as his eyes frantically searched the room for something he could use, he knew it was futile. Something guided his panicked gaze past the deep abyss of the gun's barrel and study the female in the golden light streaking in. Somehow he understood, with a surreal flash of almost alien insight, her expression of sheer terror. The female turian said something quickly in their rough, grating language.

The male turian kept his stance for a few moments before lowering the pistol begrudgingly. He snarled at him, a deep, menacing sound and turned his back on him, moving to one corner of the room. A breath of relief escaped from the human, coming out in ragged scraps of whistles.

"Just so you don't try scurrying away . . ." The words hung in the air like a poignant cloud when the interrogator approached him once again with an object obscured in shadow. It was only when the thing came swinging down that he finally understood what it was with verifiable horror. An organic sort of crunch resounded within the room as the odd ball-point hammer connected with his right knee.

This time, there was no measure of self-inhibition to stop the soldier's deafening cry. His vision turned washed-out and pallid as tears and unrestrained howling set his own ears ringing. The man was faintly aware of the hammer being tossed aside with a clatter.

"Now that's better. It's like an anthem ready to be spread to the masses. I would stay and enjoy the show but as you humans say, cheerio!" The soldier faintly caught the turian walking out of the room as every curse known to man ricocheted around the whole installation until his strength to even speak was reduced to a mere sliver. His throat shriveled into a mummy-like husk and a sharp bout of aching pounded away like a jackhammer against his skull.

A few moments passed and he faintly noticed that the female turian was still standing there, staring at him impassively as if her adverse reaction never happened. Maybe it was a fool's sentimental dream but some part of him wanted to appeal to that brief nature if it even existed. He managed, with his tongue horribly mauled, to speak despite the fact that he knew his words would fall on deaf ears.

"Kill me. If you have any sense of generosity, kill me now," he begged hoarsely. The soldier's form shook and began to be wracked with sobs. If he survived this, it would be something that he could laugh cruelly at, crying in a puddled mess like that, but not that day, when it was happening right then.

By this time, the soldier felt himself nodding off again. The bang of the door sounded like a dulled thump to him. The return of the darkness left him alone and blind to his surroundings. An all-encompassing feeling of despair tightened his chest as his subconscious dropped deeper into the rabbit hole.

Inevitably, he fell unconscious once more.

* * *

A faraway, discordant voice broke through the blackness of his fitful slumber. The soldier grunted and opened his eyes. All of his senses were distinctly hollow, as if he were underwater. He attempted to rise from his position before realizing he was still in the interrogation room. The pattering of rain could be heard on the roof along with the faraway cracks of thunder. It felt like days had passed since he had fallen unconscious. The voice came again, hitting him like a bell in a bar-room. Blood and drool dribbled out of his gaping mouth when he groaned.

The female turian he saw earlier was kneeling at his side, applying a batch of medi-gel to the slashes he received. Confusion ringed inside his head. All of a sudden, he felt the cold tips of her talons and he instinctively jerked back, the chair nearly toppling backwards.

She uttered a cursory statement in (turian-nese?), dabbing at his wounds again with her talons, each respectively earning a wince from the soldier.

The turian moved to his face, claws gliding across the gash over his face with the ointment. His hands curled into fists at the sharp, stinging pain, his bonds quaking with tension. Blood roared in his ears like a biological battle-cry. Deep in his gut, he knew that they were just healing him to endure another session of interrogation. His thoughts turned furious when he remembered the other soldier with him when he was captured. Had Vega somehow escaped? He hoped he hadn't stubbornly mounted a rescue but history was not in his favor.

They all knew the risks, as with every reconnaissance mission. Facing the 43rd, the most decorated unit in the turian military, head-on was suicide and the higher-ups knew it.

The instant numbing effect washed over him, followed a few seconds later by a burst of energy. Then, the alien came in uncomfortably close to his face, her golden eyes surveying his facial wounds once again. He searched for something in them, some faint trace of humanity. It only took a few seconds to recognize that it was all in vain, subconsciously realizing he was foolishly peering into an animalistic golden abyss.

She leaned back on her perpetually arched legs and he was snapped back into reality. A halo of golden light appeared over her forearm. The turian tapped into the interface and there was a loud, hissing noise. She pulled out a wickedly sharp combat knife and a piece of cloth from her belt.

The alien stuffed the strange fabric into his mouth before he could react. His voice was all drowned out, all too late. The faint clacking of the chair pegs on the floor was in deep contrast to the returning horror raging inside him. She held the blade to the device on her forearm and the hissing sound came again. The awful scent of burning fuel came in wisps and his brain registered a blowtorch. He renewed his struggle as the alien brought the glowing blade to his legs.

If the soldier could choose one time to fall unconscious during this whole joyride of pain, it was then. Alas, it was not to be. His vocal cords were scraped and torn all to hell long before it ended. As soon it was over, the agony dropped out of FTL levels of nuts and was replaced with a dull ache.

Slowly, the turian pulled out the cloth and threw it away, landing with a squelch of bodily fluids on the ground. Something akin to disgust crossed her marbled face as she rose to dispose of the fabric.

The soldier tried everything to get rid of the husk in his throat, partly caused by stomach acid and mostly from sustained screaming.

She returned millennia later and inspected his wounds once more, a hard edge to her eyes. She cut the bonds and the soldier slumped forward like a lifeless body. The brief harshness of turian speech filled the room as she dropped to one knee in front of him. Like a bumbling fly to a web, she did exactly what he needed her to do.

Ignoring the fact that his wrists were seasoned with blood and that he had a busted kneecap, he lashed out at her, knocking the knife from her claws and pinning her to the ground. His old C.O would be impressed.

A surprised grunt escaped her mouth as the soldier perched himself above her on his good leg, ignoring the cries of the torn sinews in his thighs. It wasn't war that guided him then, the doctrine of having to do what had to be done. No, it was murder gleaming in his eyes, giving him strength and blindness.

The soldier wrapped his fingers around her throat, intending to secure her very last breath like a trophy, off-setting every urgent damage report his nerves sent and channeling it into this one act. The turian struggled against the sudden assault, writhing underneath him as her mallet-like fist repeatedly connected with his side, her leathery throat bulging at his fingertips. With every fist that connected, the soldier's body bucked a little but remained committed to the act. With a halfway mixture of a grunt and a growl, the man lifted her up before slamming her head back down with all his might. A tortured cry managed to escape out of her larynx before her arms started to slacken. He took all this in like a calm predator, relishing the life fleeing out of her. If he was going to die, he was going to take a damn alien with him.

Something akin to a concussion grenade hit him along with a blinding blue light. Next thing the soldier knew, he was flying through the air. His back slammed against the wall and the soldier fell face-down in the linoleum, a cloud of cement enshrouding him.

"Oh, god," he groaned, hugging his sides, the pain registering once more. The cloud settled, revealing one pissed-off turian with a silenced pistol aimed at his head. He slowly scurried backwards and hit the wall, bringing his arm out in front of him like a shield but it wouldn't be effective against mass accelerator rounds. All he thought then was that he didn't want to see the flash.

A few moments passed and he heard the pistol audibly slide into it's holster, earning a frightened gasp from him. He cautiously lowered his arm before recognizing the turian's approach. He yelled as her talons unexpectedly pressed against his side. She held a finger to her (ear?) and the yellow hologram appeared once again over her forearm.

"What's the status on the transport? I have a wounded asset bleeding out fast, over!" A few garbled alien-sounding phrases were faintly uttered in response.

"I don't care. Make it happen. Set down as close as you can, soldier!" The turian dismissed the connection. The soldier tried to focus on processing this new information. The fact that she was speaking in near-perfect English (without a tell-tale translator) deserved more merit but between bleeding to death and possibly ending up as a POW for years, that was the last thing he needed to think about. They were probably transporting him to a different facility, wherever hostages go. As was typical of him, his mind decided to focus on the language part instead.

"You speak English?" the soldier asked, hoping to extract any useful info. The alien gave him a pointed look as she inspected her pistol.

"I recall a human saying that goes something like this: 'Don't bite the hand that feeds you' or in this case, the one that hasn't put a bullet through your head. Arterius didn't do it but cross me again . . ." The threat lingered in the air but like with most challenges that faced him, the soldier responded accordingly.

"And humans have another saying: go to hell." The female turian's mandibles flitted a little and her predatory gaze bored into his own, dangerously reminding him of his interrogator. In a staring match, he would have definitely lost. He had to look away as he searched for another topic.

"Where are you taking me?"

"Give me one reason why I should tell you," she snarled. At that, the soldier clammed up. Thankfully, her gaze softened as she stood and went into the hallway, pacing a little.

"I'll tell you this. I am not your enemy. I'm trying to get you out of here. I told your interrogator there was a human squad in the area to get the others out of the way."

There was a good deal of accent in her voice, except that it was surprisingly smooth. The natural vibration in Turian speech somehow seemed more pronounced in her feminine voice, apparent now from her more subdued tone in the past.

 _Darn it, focus man!_

"W-why?"

"We started this war. Some of us don't agree with what our people did. Our military already has defectors, aiding your people in secret. This war has to end . . . for both our species' sake." She crossed her arms and leaned against the wall.

Shepard inched his back flat against his own personal wall, responding to the anxious pleas of his spine, spitting blood out of his mouth.

"How can I trust you? Your people attacked our colony. Shanxi was home to many settlers. Farmers. Men, women and children living an honest life. They _all_ lie in unmarked graves here because of you bastards. The line between friend and foe is looking a bit blurry on my end."

Against his will, a tear began to streak down his face, the only thing that belied anything other than anger and pain in his expression. She stared down at him with renewed intensity.

"The way I see it, you have no choice."

The soldier laughed bitterly before groaning in pain.

"Hell, it probably won't matter. I won't be able to make it."

A bout of wet-sounding coughs seized him as the turian surged forward.

"Come on; wrap your arms around me. I'm getting you out of here."

No matter how much his blood boiled at the thought of cooperating with a turian, he was not in a position to resist. He gingerly complied as he reached for her extended forearm, trying not to show his surprise at the muscle apparent underneath her reinforced plate-like carapace. Frankly, it was the first time he felt any part of a turian without giving or receiving blows.

Any steadiness that he regained of his nerves immediately fled to the night skies as soon as he put weight on his legs. He crashed to the floor, seething with pain. Solana plucked him back up, nearly carrying him off his feet.

"Alright, just slowly hop forward on your good leg. I'll catch you if anything happens."

The soldier looked at her indignantly but his expression softened too. An alien was pulling his ass out of the fire. It had to be a dream. A really, vivid dream. If that was the case, he wanted to derive as much information from his traitorous subconscious as possible.

His mouth was already forming words before he could clamp it shut. "What's your name?"

"Solana Vakarian," she grunted, brushing off her military tunic with her free hand.

"Cute name," he beleaguered-ly muttered. He gasped in pain as she planted an elbow into his already hammered side, somehow not impaling him with her spurs. _Definitely_ not a dream.

"You're already on rocky standing with me. Don't push it."

Dark thoughts roiled in his mind as he limped along the hallway. Solana paused, searching the courtyards below through the window. Her gaze shifted towards the dark horizon, apparently catching sight of something.

"Let's go. We need to get to the rendezvous point."

He tripped over his own feet once they moved again, saved only by the turian's strength. The soldier couldn't ever remember being this distracted especially in a potentially dangerous situation. Maybe it was the intoxicatingly salty metallic scent roiling off her neck or maybe it was the lone butterfly going haywire in his stomach. He couldn't decide if it was disgust or . . . something else. The pain-killers in the medi-gel must have started working their magic.

His traitorous eyes surveyed her leathery neck, noticing the bruised imprint of his fingers around her throat. He sympathetically swallowed as if physically trying to force down the boiling feeling in his gut. Regret.

The soldier furrowed his brow and tried to take stock of his surroundings. Thankfully, it was quiet in the courtyards below. Even the thunder and rain had stopped roaring. The veins in his wrist fluttered as if anticipating an ambush. That struck a chord of fear in his throat.

"Aren't you going to tell me yours?"

His whole body prickled with surprise before settling at the lack of danger.

"Tell you what?"

"Your name?"

He was silent for a moment as he searched for it through a pile of cluttered folders. For a scary moment, he thought he had forgotten it.

"Shepard. John Shepard." His name sounded strange and foreign as if it belonged to someone else.

There was faint rustling of metal as Solana placed something in his limp hand. It was a dog-tag, his dog-tag.

"I managed to pick it off a guard."

He held it to his chest for a few moments before slipping it into his pocket, stilling the words of gratitude on his tongue. It effectively put his identity back into perspective, reminding him of who he was. Shepard settled for something different in response.

"What about my smokes?"

"Smokes?"

"Yeah, cigarettes." He motioned a hand over his mouth. She only stared at him blankly . . . or stoically. Correctly recognizing expressions on turians was very fifty-fifty.

"Never mind."

After a few moments of silence, he spoke again. "Why did you ask for my name in the first place if you already knew?" he questioned.

"I . . . wanted to see if you trusted me with yours."

Her gaze was set straight forward when she said this. He had no idea what to make of that statement so he simply hopped along as she instructed him to.

It pained him to admit it even with the drugs nullifying his most basic inhibitions.

"I don't trust you but thank you . . . for this."

She didn't make any human indication that she heard him except for an almost non-existent thrumming in her throat. A rhythm of calm set into the soldier's movements at this odd response while he systematically swung forward. He let himself take in every good sensation as if the dream was about to end. His waking hours would offer no quarter to him.

That's when everything went dark.

* * *

 **A/N: Yes! First Fanfic in forever! Let me know what you think in your reviews. Always open to constructive criticism other than myself.**

 **Just so it's clear, this is going to focus primarily on the deadly serious aspect. I'm horrible at writing about heartfelt humor and comradery like the gems out there in this archive even though I am a pretty funny guy in general. (That's why I have a ton of one-shot ideas that will probably never come to fruition.)**

 **I've always kind of didn't like how the characters in other Mass Effect fanfics seem to shrug off every single fight with witty jokes and humor. I know that's part of the identity of this amazing series so there WILL be a bit of comedy along the way although not as much as you'd expect. It's not exactly gritty, I think . . .**

 **WAIT!**

 **I forgot all about Shepard! Yes, I'm sticking to the default name for a good reason. Ever heard of names like Sebastian or Ethan Shepard? Just NO. Simple name for a complex person, alright?**

 **My take on the First Contact War is an AU so I'm planning to include most, if not all, of the major characters in Mass Effect throughout.**

 **Stay tuned!**


	3. Interlude: Back From the Dead

**Intermission: Back From the Dead**

 _Long Island, New York_

 _Seven Years Later . . . a Lifetime later_

The vid screen flickered with a series of shots of the Alliance Headquarters in London as a newscaster droned on. A turian watched silently on an uncomfortable human chair as clips of Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speeches ran. Pleasantries were exchanged and the typical dedication rant began for their diplomatic work with the newly discovered galactic community. It had been playing for some time and the alien entertained himself by listening to the rhythm of his talons clacking on the mahogany table. He glanced up at the screen again in time as the one man he recognized took the stage. Admiral Jon Grissom, the living legend, or so the media portrayed him. The vid played out in mute, making it easier to notice the red circles under the man's eyes, probably feeling just as tired and sick as the alien did but for different reasons. He bore the legend no personal ill will but he was long done with the Alliance.

No one knew about the real reason why the First Contact War came to an end. History would remember false heroes but anger had faded long ago within the lone turian.

The information he was going to deliver was a blatant disregard for the contract he signed all those years ago. It didn't matter to him anymore. The last thing he wanted was attention and become a man like Grissom but someone needed to know. The alien had to keep this strictly confidential. Gut instinct told him to trust this particular human. Right now, things were not looking good.

Like a monkey in a cage, the damn pristine glass cubicle gave the people on the entire ground floor an obstructed look at him. No doubt his face would appear beneath an absurd headline in the news, probably before being switched back to the shit-faced mug of the Jon Grissom Show.

His back was towards the entrance, providing many of the people coming in with an unobstructed look at the unmistakable fringe of his horns with expressions of shock, anger, and even interest muddling together. The slight changes in breathing from behind communicated all this information to him even through the glass. He was sitting in a separate room however so it would discourage unwanted banter.

Coming to think of it, the turian realized that they might have put him here on purpose as a champion of ridicule, of fear, of hate. It would never truly go away. Three years was not enough to really dispense with the hostilities, though most understood why the turians fired the first shot. Humanity doesn't like to think about it too hard because they would have done the exact same thing in the turian's proverbial shoes.

Nevertheless, one Cold War ends and another one begins: A challenge of ideas between the newcomers and the veterans, turians and humans, children against adults, fighting for distinctive identity in a turbulent world, a voice and a culture. Evolution and hundreds of thousands of light-years hasn't changed these common wants and needs.

The turian studied his blackish, grayish, distinctly avian fingers, curling them into his palm once he realized he was creating a thin white line on the table with a talon. It was very easy to forget how soft and fragile everything was. That was the first hard lesson he learned about being turian. Destruction of property wasn't something he planned on being arrested for. He no longer tried to imagine that his hands were human hands, no longer desperate to fool himself into wishful thinking. Even in the worst of nights, he refused to let the dextro liquor become his buddy. Pride wouldn't exactly capture how he thought about himself but self-loathing was something he aimed to avoid. He had already come to terms with himself a long time ago, being a life-long casualty of war.

The turian's mandibles flared out a little in a broad interpretation of a smile at this thought but his expression subsequently hardened as he realized that what he was going to do today and for the weeks thereafter was going to punch, kick, stab, and carve out old wounds he would have preferred to be buried underneath a decommissioned bulldozer at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. He would have to confront his inner demons, in small, frequent, probably excruciating doses.

Time trickled by and she still didn't show. Maybe the human had cold feet. Anyone would; interviewing a turian wasn't something that breezed by nonchalantly. It would do him no good to stay here, respectable establishment or not. Then again, leaving meant more time that he was kept in the shadows, trapped into a corner.

He stood from his chair, not sure of what was pricking his senses until the distinctive sound of thumping stilettos came into range. The alien looked back and recognized the no-nonsense garb of the journalist he met a few days ago. At first, nobody payed attention to her but as she approached the "cage," people began looking up with interest from their morning coffee. The journalist's face was one of barely composed exasperation, two recycled paper mugs clenched firmly within her hands.

He immediately opened the door out of politeness just as she swooshed in. He immediately became a bit self-conscious of his alien formal attire which he quickly found out was naturally and horrendously limited compared to her lab-coat and skirt-suit professionalism. The suit he was wearing now was the same as when they first met (clean and ironed, of course but still . . .) Her clothes changed like a kaleidoscope however, all ready to go to corporate war any day.

The journalist set down the two cups of coffee with a massive clunk. Amazingly, no coffee spilled out. Her hands immediately brushed aside a wayward strand of hair from her face. She exhaled loudly, her hands returning to grip the edge of the table with exhaustion.

"Sorry I kept you waiting. Had to make a quick run to the office." She paused, scrutinizing him for a moment before glancing around. "Are you alright? I hope nobody gave you a hard time. Damn, who put you in here? Probably my assistant, that racist-"

The turian raised his hands in a placating gesture.

"I'm fine, Jeane. There's no need to get worked up. I wouldn't mind getting out of here, though."

"Yes, of course." She gave a hard stare at the two cups of coffee before passing him one.

"I'll go out first. Once I'm out of sight, follow me. Try to look inconspicuous and meet me in front of the theater two stores down." Before the turian could reply, she was already out of the door. Her walk was flustered and exaggerated, part of an act that his war brain instantly recognized.

 _Inconspicuous . . . I can do that,_ he thought as he took a careful sip of coffee, angling it off to the side to accommodate his mandibles and concave mouth. He waited for any tell-tale signs of anaphylactic shock. He was one of the few lucky turian's who wasn't allergic to the levo amino type but it was often prudent to be cautious. When nothing started burning oddly, he took another sip, letting himself savor it like he couldn't do the first time. It was prepared exactly the way he liked it but he merely thought it was a lucky guess on her part. Still, it warmed him both figuratively and literally.

It occurred to him then that he had lost complete track of her. Surreptitiously, he pushed open the door and walked out slowly but deliberately. The turian paused once to pay for the daily newspaper before continuing on as part of his cover. No one followed him as he walked out thankfully. He glanced around, the harsh morning light hitting him like a baseball bat along with the biting cold. Naturally, his body was sensitive to the temperature and his plated exoskeleton began to press a little more tightly to his under-skin to conserve temperature.

The turian spotted Jeane to his right, likely freezing her ass off. Adjusting his suit a little higher up his neck to block out the nipping cold, the alien approached her. She quickly caught sight of him and promptly hailed a shuttle. One descended promptly and Jeane got in.

It may have been the sharp gust of wind, but his chest went abnormally tight. Jeane was going to leave without him; she changed her mind. He spurred his legs to move which carried him faster than any human could run with relative ease. He ignored the wayward glances as he braked with his heel, the smell of burning synthetic material digging harshly into his nostrils. The turian shot his hand out and caught the handle of the cab, crouching to open the door. It was unlocked, which surprised him as he threw himself inside.

"You took your sweet time, huh?" she said.

"I thought you were going to leave without me," he said, taking another sip of coffee to show that his question wasn't as serious as he had intended it to be, knowing now that she hadn't even considered it. His coffee had remained perfectly preserved with a talon covering the opening. The alien couldn't see her expression because he was leaning forward to compensate for his long fringe which could easily puncture the headrest. His bulky frame pitted her against the door. It seemed like she didn't mind though.

"Gosh, you're warm," she said.

"Yup, the wonders of turian physiology."

Jeane chuckled a little while she inputted directions into the autopilot interface. The cabbie engaged the thrusters and took them into the air. Soaring miles above London, he immediately felt ill at ease, as if everything were right in the world. He hadn't felt like that in a long time . . . until his damn neck started to protest.

The turian decided to remedy his situation by turning his head off to the side to accommodate his fringe. It now bumped repeatedly on the door but now he faced an entirely different kind of problem. He was stuck facing Jeane. Turning his head to the other side would mean risking impaling her on his horns. The alien simply opted to close his eyes but eventually wound up studying her features under the rays of the welcoming morning sun.

For a human, she would have been considered an attractive woman. She encompassed both sides of the coin between severity and soft, delicate features. Her eyes were a shade of rich, milk chocolate, now turned fiery under the rays of the sun, highlighting the soft, red gloss on her lips. Jeanne's jet-black hair was a stark contrast from her olive complexion. The ends of her luscious hair curved under to hug her expertly carved jaw-line. It reminded him of a distant beach at night in a cosmic cove, waves breaking in a different species of silence, away from the reach of civilization.

He returned to his original position to break away from his wandering thoughts.

"We'll be there soon, alright?" she said, her undertone communicating a sense of concern. He didn't want to break the soft harmony of her voice with his harshly dissonant speech, vibrating like some sort of beast-like insect. The alien decided to grunt instead but a pressing question suddenly came to mind which he voiced reluctantly.

"Where are we going?"

"I thought it would better to conduct this interview in the privacy of my home. I've gotta warn you about the mess though. Don't trip on anything. You'll start a chain-reaction," she said seriously, but a smile tugged at the edge of her lips. His thoughts, in contrast, turned cloudy.

"You sure you can trust a turian? Humanity seems to think we're perfect predators, and they're right for a reason. You must be crazy to invite someone like me into your home, especially alone."

Jeane's expression hardened but her eyes flickered to his talons. Nevertheless, she was silent for a long time, and the turian's heart plummeted.

"Not everyone thinks like that. In all my years of journalism, I've gotten into the minds of unsavory characters and you are not one of them, John. Besides, I'm not alone."

The human said his name a little uncertainly as if it were foreign. After all, both species only made contact seven years ago. She knew it wasn't a typical turian name and the journalist was correct. Jeane just didn't know why.

They said nothing else for the rest of the trip. The shuttle touched down in the driveway of her residence and the hatches opened automatically. As John disembarked a little too eagerly, his fringe sliced through the headrest like butter. Hurriedly, he threw in some compensation as he picked off pieces of fluff from his horns, imagining the stunned look on the guy managing the taxi depot.

Jeane laughed silently as they began to make their way into her home. It was a quaint, sub-urban home with two stories and multiple windows. Inside, the furniture, decor, and potted plants graced each hallway and room. Still, there were piles of paper stacked high over the coffee tables and shelves. Articles and adventure magazines lay open on any surface it could get its hands on. A basket of laundry nearly made him trip.

"Spirits, I'm not used to something like this," he whispered almost fearfully.

"What do you mean?" she asked, her face hidden from view while she fished for something in the closet.

"Usually, turians like to keep a sparse and tidy residence. Personal touches are always kept at a minimum. It goes along with the whole 'stick-up-our-asses' theme."

She stared at him a little puzzled, having found what she was looking for.

"You'll get the joke later on," he promised.

Jeane motioned for him to sit on the couch which he took graciously. The turian turned his gaze backwards and watched her close the shutters on every window in the living room. In a snap, the bright light yawning all over the tiled floor vanished. The journalist parted the shutters for a moment, and watched.

"Alright, looks like we weren't followed," she noted before rummaging through the fridge.

"Damn. I got nothing dextro in here. Should I order something?"

"No, I'm fine. Already ate a good breakfast," he responded, semi-stunned by the utter politeness she was showing to him. Past meetings didn't allow him to gauge her overall attitude. How could a prominent journalist, having first-hand accounts of breaking news (most notably, the First Contact War), be so kind to someone like him, the alien opposition? He was still trying to get readjusted to the confusing diversity of humanity. Unwelcomingly, his war brain pointed out something else. Diversity could just as easily mean she was going to stab him in the back.

Jeane seemed to have already prepared for an eventual interview because a bulky chair was already positioned facing the couch. She promptly took a seat, tossing a device she fished out of her pocket onto the table which opened into a holographic folder.

"I didn't get a chance to look at the files you sent me. I've been swamped at work lately. I hope that's alright."

He nodded, distracted by the overwhelming instinct to bolt out of the room. The turian was in too deep to back out but his heart began to hammer against his ribs like a prisoner banging on rusted bars as he finally started to take in the entirety of the present situation. The words began to pour out of his mouth, unconsciously afraid to be interrupted.

"Look, I haven't been entirely honest with you. Those files that I gave you? They're all junk data. I have no definitive proof, nothing to make you believe a single ounce of the words that are going to come out of my mouth. Your kind believe in "journalistic integrity," so if you think this is a waste of your time, I'll leave immediately. I've seen your work abroad and you are the only person open enough to do this. I can't just keep this inside, damn what the Alliance thinks!"

"John."

"I'm putting you in danger, just being here for my own selfish reasons. I lied, and I'm sorry. I don't know what the hell I was thinking, coming in here and accepting your charity! I don't deserve it! I'm a turian, for spirit's sake, and I lied!"

"JOHN, goddamn it, stop already!"

The room went utterly still and the turian realized that he had bolted to his feet. He regained his seat and tried to swallow the lump in his throat, averting her gaze.

"That's what you're upset about? You're agonizing over a lie as small as that?"

His dumbfounded expression would probably go right over her head but at the moment, he was at a loss for words to voice it.

"I've talked with people who had the same concerns as you. Plus, you don't get scars like that in civilian life. There's a look in your eye . . . and I've only seen it before in war-torn refugees. Some things still translate well across species. You've seen things. I don't know what . . . but regardless of me being a journalist, _I_ want to know."

John didn't answer for a few moments while he got to his feet and paced in front of the couch.

"You don't understand! This is all going to shatter the way you think about the Alliance, the turian hierarchy, everything; secrets that could reignite the war tenfold! I can't prove all that! Even someone as open-minded as you wouldn't believe me. Spirits, you might even hate me and I can't . . . I can't lose . . ."

His tongue trembled and his hands shook before he finally decided to take a seat again before he fainted. Once he regained the courage, the turian looked up to meet her gaze, ashamed of the way he handled things. She was his only lifeline to the world and he was blowing it away.

There was a muffled pounding on the front door and Jeane uttered a distorted apology, leaving to check the door. He rose unsteadily from the couch, and wheeled himself towards the door before subsequently freezing in place.

A middle-aged human male stood shell-shocked in the doorway with a six-year old girl standing next to him. Jeanne kneeled down, her laughter full of unbridled happiness, lifting the girl up and twirling her in the air. She set the girl down and stroked her brown hair, whispering to her. It seemed very intimate, and the turian was suddenly very uncomfortable.

She rose, evidently reluctant, and surveyed the situation. Jeane raised her hand towards the man, and paused as if choosing her words, before reaffirming the gesture.

"Eric, this is . . . John. John, this is Eric. Hope, meet John."

The little girl, Hope, stepped forward a little unbalanced on her two feet, her eyes fixed on his which in this case, was nearly skyward.

He stopped down to her level and proffered a tentative, "Hi." Hell, it was a long time since he had even spoken to a kid. War tended to do that sort of stuff, wringing out whatever innocence you had left in you like dirty mop water. On that note, he was sort of envious. The alien had no real inclination to dislike children. They felt like a new species to him, impossible to gauge. Was she afraid? John looked over to Jeane for guidance but her face was completely passive.

"Does she know what I . . ." Hope's hands suddenly shot forward and grabbed his mandibles. ". . . am?"

"Is this a costume? It's not even Halloween yet!" she huffed, and let go of his mandibles. The turian couldn't suppress a mild grin at that as his mandibles flared outward in relief. It was at the girl's wide-eyed gaze that he realized his serrated teeth were on full display, a gesture that was usually interpreted as hostile by humans in the war. He clamped down it fast enough to hear the faint clack of his mandibles hugging his mouth. To her credit, she seemed largely unfazed.

"No. Hope, do you remember those little vids you saw, the one about the aliens? He's a real turian," Jeanne said, returning to her soft voice.

The little human took a sudden shaky breath as if realizing something. "Oh! You're John. Mommy told me about you."

The alien's eyes shot upwards to Jeane's, surprise and confusion muddled together. She came forward and stooped a little.

"Yes, he is. Run up to your room, now. I'll talk to you later . . . about everything."

The little girl nodded and dashed up the stairs and out of sight. John rose again to his full height. He was wrong; the awkward silences weren't over by a long shot. In a few moments, it was clear that the man's shock was wearing off.

"So you had the time to explain that to our daughter but you decided not to inform me? I mean, who's he, really?" he asked Jeanne, gesturing over at him. John immediately decided he didn't like the man.

"He's a . . . turian. He works over at the . . . uh, place at . . . the . . . uh." Her words flew into oblivion as she mumbled a few incoherent syllables.

Eric's body language told the alien everything. "Look, I'm not one to butt into your affairs but if the schedule isn't working out for you . . ."

Jeane sighed and gritted her teeth. "Look, it's fine. I know where my priorities are."

"Allow me to clear up the confusion," the turian said, stepping forward before the situation devolved into a domestic dispute.

"My name is John Pliskin. I'm a special correspondent of the New York Times, over at the U.N.'s Bureau of Extra-Terrestrial Affairs. Jeane here was interviewing me on the progress of the 'ease of access' if you will, of extra-terrestrial immigrants to Earth. I hope I didn't frighten all of you too much. My apologies, if that is the case." The turian paused for a moment before extending his hand out, waiting for Eric to call his bluff.

Thankfully, he didn't and proceeded to shake his hand, albeit awkwardly.

"If you wish to speak about family matters, I'll gladly leave." He made a move to walk out the door but Jeanne held him back.

"No, it's alright. There's nothing to talk about, right, Eric?" she said, venom laced into her tongue. Eric shook his head and stepped back.

"No. I just assumed . . . you know, with all the closed shutters."

"We were discussing matters of some sensitivity. Didn't want the press getting any ideas," the turian answered.

"Oh. Uh, you're not going to kill me now, are you?" The man proffered a tentative smile with this, raising his hands halfway into the air. The implication glanced by the turian's fringe before his dormant humanity registered the implied joke.

"No. Nothing of that matter. I would have to explain it to the authorities. The paperwork would be a real pain in the ass."

The man took a step back, shock clear in his face as he glanced back and forth between the two of them. Jeanne nudged the turian's side with her elbow, visibly gritting her teeth. It might have hurt if he was human.

"That was a joke."

The human tried to manage a laugh but it was shaky and forced. At least he had a sense of humor. That the alien could respect, probably because he had the proverbial boot over him.

"Yeah, just came to say that I had to take care of something at work, so I had to drop off Hope early. Yeah," he said, scratching his neck before promptly walking down the path. Jeanne shut the door and huffed in exasperation, stomping over to her chair.

"Look, sorry about that mess. Thanks for covering for me . . . but John Pliskin? Is that even your real name?"

The alien idly flipped through a few pages of National Geographic on the entryway drawer, casting a cursory glance over the tropical vistas and tech articles.

"No. Just something from an old movie I watched once," the turian said absently. He glanced up from the magazine to find her sitting on the couch with her hands covering her face.

"Do you even work at B.E.T.A?"

There was a worrying amount of sudden exasperation in her voice. He was losing her fast.

"I used to. Desk-job after the war wasn't exactly my cup of tea. Figured I could do some good there anyway but I got fed up of all the bureaucracy. I realized I was just the token alien so the department would look good. So, I high-tailed it out of there."

The turian reached inside his coat, having finally decided to throw caution to the wind.

"And where do you work now?" she asked cautiously.

"I'm a training officer in the Alliance at Arcturus Station. Taking some paid shore leave. It's temporary. Not making a lot of friends that way, obviously. I'm planning to return to Palaven in a few months, if things haven't worked out."

The mere mention of the turian homeworld brought a bitter taste to his mouth which he absentmindedly tried to rub off on his incisors. The turian reached the couch in small strides, casually setting down the objects that he had clenched in his hand so tightly a few moments ago.

"John?"

Jeane eyed him cautiously and glanced down at the card and silver tag.

"I can't keep skirting around it anymore. These are some of the only things the Alliance didn't take away from me. It's the only proof I have left. It's time you knew."

The journalist picked up the tag slowly, looking over the smudge of crystallized blood- blue and red intertwined- scattered like ashes across a series of tiny glinting canyons that spelled a name already fading from history. Her eyes widened and she blindly half-lunged, half-fumbled for the card on the table, never taking her eyes off the talisman. As her eyes rapidly switched between the two, her hands and lips began to tremble for words that suddenly didn't exist. When she finally decided to look up at him, it reminded him of the haunted looks the alien had seen on so many survivors, as if experiencing the shock of betrayal for the first time.

"What . . . How?!"

The turian gave her a sad look, his subharmonics full of invisible sorrow.

"It's me, back from the dead. I am John Shepard. Remember me?"


	4. Chapter 2: The Disgraced Part I

_A/N: I don't always write author's notes but when I do, I point fingers (at myself)._

 _Kept you waiting, huh?_

 _First of all, if any of you have stayed with me so far, I severely applaud you. I don't deserve any loyal readers like yourselves, especially after god knows how long! All I can say is, sorry I haven't updated sooner! This chapter was actually ready some time ago but my computer broke down . . . which was enough time for me to become dissatisfied with what I had down. Seriously, I remember writing was a lot easier before. It is now heavily re-written (and hopefully better). However, it won't contradict the chapters I already have planned._

 _Hoo boy, I didn't realize how much the past chapter needed one of these note's. For those of you having raised an eyebrow, rest assured that the plot twist in the aforementioned chapter will be heavily rationalized upon as the story progresses. It will eventually make sense in the context of the story so don't count me out as a radical just yet. I've got most of the important details hammered out along with a good chunk of pseudoscience to make sense of that particular skadoozee . . . eventually. I made it a little clearer for new readers so no one is thrown through a loop._

 _Apologies for the long overdue update. School started catching up to me in sheer difficulty over the break. I assure you that writer's block is the furthest thing stopping me from updating. Actually, it's quite the opposite. I have WAY too many ideas and WAY too much inspiration (and not enough time) fueling it that I just had to include a few of them in this chapter. Before I knew it, this became the most bloated chapter I've ever written, hence the two part separation. I'll keep things significantly shorter from now on. This nearly stopped me dead in my tracks._

 _Mainly, this is an exercise so I can see the very best I can do which is why all of this is taking such a damn while. Hell, it probably isn't even worth the wait but I'm doing this so I can nail down those crazy ass fight scenes I've dreamt up._

 _*Also, the journalist is not an OC. Virtual space cookies to whoever figures it out. :P_

* * *

 **Chapter 2: The Disgraced**

 _Part I_

It had been a long time since any measure of normalcy had been presented upon the lone soldier. It often came with the territory.

 _Jesus, where do I even start with that?_

But this? This was another kind of crazy.

When he closed his eyes to block the distorted lull of the outside, distant and brief murmurs of dreams and shards of intense violence whisked past his mind's eye like a veteran replayed events of the war, relentlessly chewing on the exact point where things went FUBAR. The few times that he awoke from his fitful sleep, his senses resembled something like Jell-O shots so Shepard collapsed again into darkness. The particular events remained unintelligible until much later and he wasn't exactly thankful for that.

So it was, that at that moment, he was offered a brief reprieve from the dark corners of his psyche to fall into paradise. A song played over the white blank where his vision was supposed to be. Soft and sweet, distinctly female. It didn't take long for that illusion to shatter.

An insistent beeping echoed at the fringe of his senses. His body seemed frozen on the spot and lethargically heavy like a stubborn sac of potatoes. It took another bout of nodding off for him to recognize the white in his vision was a glaring light aimed right into his eyeballs, barely allowing him to distinguish a wood ceiling above.

Despite the lingering sting in his eyeballs from the blinding light, Shepard was almost out for good until the voices came. Male voices that were flanging and definitely _not_ human. The thought of danger steered him a little further into a state of coma-like attentiveness. The lovely lullaby of the woman continued and he forced himself to pay attention to the lyrics as if it were his lifeline. Nothing about it fit with the dire straits he was in. It was partly the reason why it took him so long to recognize it.

 _Top of the World._

It shouldn't have existed in a place like this. Yet, there it was, like a dredged-up memory, the only remaining relic he had salvaged of his father and now it was in the talons of the enemy.

"Cool, huh? Managed to get a loan from our friend over here. He won't be missing this tonight!"

"Spirits, do you even understand what that pyjak is saying, Fedorian?"

"I do. We all do. State-of-the-art translators, remember?"

"Don't know what the fuss is about with all this. Can you believe Vakarian sided with that old codger of his to cart around a whole bunch of useless trinkets in the middle of a war-zone? Could have gotten us all killed. "Artifacts of great historical significance." What a load of varren dung! If I didn't know any better, I could have sworn it was an asari singing. Mind you, a sleazy bartender high on her own foul fumes. I, however, prefer the old marching band anthems. Nothing can top that."

"Pshhh. Figures."

"What was that?"

"Nothing, brother."

"Do you really have to search his stuff here? Didn't they already check out through processing? It's not like he somehow re-acquired a bomb. Wait . . . forget I said anything."

"I'm a munitions expert, Gradius. It never hurts to be too careful in my line of work. Trust me, you can make an IED out of anything. It's in the name. A particular song could even activate it. These humans aren't kidding around . . . as much as we like to think so. Half of the 17th battalion was spaced and the rest torn to shreds putting down a sting of resistance in the outlying lunar satellite, all because of a strategically based suicide bomber. I'm making sure that this operation doesn't go bye-bye in a giant ball of fire."

"You're trying to scare me, aren't you? It's going to take a lot more than exploding humans to tell me off. Well, this just goes to show that the little pyjaks are getting desperate. We'll box them soon enough."

"Careful, don't want ol' Vakarian hearing you say that."

"You mean the one reason why we're freezing our scaly backsides on this rock? This little crusade of hers is really getting on my nerves. How does she expect us to be on the 'right side of history?' We'll be remembered as traitors if we do what she's proposing!"

"So you want to quit? The Commander made it very clear you could-"

"I know what she said!"

For a brief moment, the silence seemed almost jaggedly sharp with tension. One of the turians started pacing, agitated like a caged animal making sure its every step conveyed its feelings. The floorboard's cries paused for a moment as Gradius huffed with displeasure.

"Fedorian, you must understand. I'm not fleeing from my duty. I've done it long enough in the old ranks but you have to admit, something big is about to happen. The Commander, out of the blue, brings a mere human foot soldier to our camp, bare-faced outsiders are pouring in, and if you haven't heard, the Saren Arterius is hot on our heels. Spirits, I wouldn't wish a Spectre interrogation on my worst enemy. This human almost impresses me."

"Yeah, I've heard . . . and I agree with you. It's just . . . I don't think the brass would think too kindly of us talking about this."

"If you're worried about Lieutenant Victus, he's visiting another camp at the moment. Our hides will remain un-whipped for another two to three days."

"No, the one who worries me is Solana. If she's cut from the same cloth as her brother, I would be the first to break that age-old saying about our military conduct."

"Aye but you've gotta admit, getting chewed out by her isn't all that bad. With that fringe and those swaying hips of hers . . . damn, just watching her walk away is enough to compensate for the lecture. Bagging one of the Vakarian clan would bring all sorts of untold honor to my tribe. Just have to get within bludgeoning distance."

"Ha, you gotta have a death wish to say something like that! I don't know about you but I'd rather not have a target painted on my back. Besides, aren't we all clan-less now?"

The room suddenly went quiet except for a timid shift of feet.

"You just had to ruin the mood. Nice going."

There was a dull thump followed by a faint growl.

The light momentarily faded from view as something waved above him, offering the prone human a brief glimpse of the room. The little that Shepard managed to see was enough to make him balk. The prominent form of Solana Vakarian stood in the doorway of the cabin, watching the exchange with predatory eyes.

"Ruin what, Gradius?"

Out of the human's field of vision, the effect was like a pin had dropped to the floor. Chairs slid away with a painful groan and the music abruptly ceased. A menacingly taloned hand momentarily entered his vision, pushing away the tactically blinding prop. Through the slit of his eyelids, Shepard could make out an IV line snaking a tube into his arm. An entire network of wires and nodes were tapped straight into his neck and chest. Judging by the breeze that managed to cut through the thicket of covers, the human could only assume that he was wearing a hospital gown . . . But the setting was totally wrong. Instead of the sterile environment and chilling light of a typical hospital, it was a cabin! It only fully occurred to him then.

The other beds and hammocks were set up across from each other in uniform pairs. Wood pillars stood like closely cropped totems as the walls and support, the triangular canopy aided by more pillars laid out horizontally in another yet, triangular pattern arcing to the end of the structure. To the delirious human, it was utterly massive. Only darkness could be seen out of the windows but a series of warm white lights were perched between each bed, effectively drenching the room in golden light. It screamed of home, of Earth, which made it all the more frightening to know that the species targeting his entire race was in the room with him.

"Ma'am!"

"Ma'am!"

"At ease."

Solana's gaze flickered over to him and Shepard mentally cursed himself as he frantically shut his eyes. The human tried to relax his body but it stayed wound tight. The wood faintly creaked as she approached. For an awful moment of complete silence, he thought his ruse was done for. Ironically, it was a turian who came to the rescue.

"Commander, is there something wrong?"

"Nothing yet. I just came to check up on our quarry. By the way, how's your spine, Gradius?"

The floorboards chirped inquiringly as the turian shifted uncomfortably from toe to taloned toe.

"Ma'am?"

The rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor shot up in tempo amidst the resounding crash that quaked the entire cabin. For several moments, Shepard scarcely breathed.

"You must have some nerve, soldier. Is that the kind of craven back-talk you give to all your superiors? When this crusade is over, I can make the rest of your life a living hell doing hard labor for the Hierarchy. I'll personally see to it that you will never hold a respectable position again! You'll be as insignificant to every female as a scalped fly cooking in radiation. You better hope that you're able to change my mind or your life is going to start looking very bleak. Hmmmm?"

"Yes, Commander." That was the first time he had ever heard a turian squeak.

"Come on, you timid varren pup! Where's your backbone?"

"Yes, ma'am! Commander ma'am!" That awkward spur of the moment enthusiasm nearly made Shepard snigger with mild satisfaction. No matter the species, subordinates nearly shit themselves in a confrontation with a superior officer.

There was a single dull thump and a bout of muted gasping. A cloud of tension sizzled for a few moments in deep silence. When the dust began to settle, the female turian spoke once more in a carefully measured voice.

"Well, you are one very lucky turian. You'll be scrubbing the toilets in Barracks 3 and 1. I better be able to see my own reflection on those thrones when I come knocking. Harris will happily supply you with what you need. Get to it."

"Aye, sir . . . yes sir!"

The wooden planks squeaked as Gradius half-walked, half-dashed to the exit. He was already peeling off his armored greaves by the time he reached the doorway. It momentarily broke the withering bug-eyed stare Shepard had been giving to a particular wooden peg in the next bed.

"Gradius?"

The turian sub-ordinate slowly spun on his heel and reluctantly raised his gaze towards Solana. In the golden light, the yellow wing-shaped (tattoo?) on his face waxed and waned with every slight movement. His naturally sunk-in skull-like eyes displayed a fraction of anger and dismay that didn't reach anywhere else. The sections of his light armor were now uneven from the interruption, half-peeled off and hanging loosely from his arms and shoulders. Despite this, he stood and waited with his undivided attention.

"If you are under any illusions about what we're doing, allow me to dispel them. You joined this initiative because you have seen how our brethren, our comrades in arms, threw down their gauntlets and became no more than beasts. We are here to restore honor to the Legion and remove those that attempt to dissuade our people from the path of true valor. This conflict is no longer honorable . . and in order for it to end, we must do something even more dishonorable. I assume that since you're here, some part of you already knows this."

Gradius's mandibles twitched and his gaze shifted to his feet as if he had been scorned by his mother. Mirroring that, he spoke reluctantly.

 _"I do."_

Solana vaguely nodded with approval.

"At this point, humanity is the least of our worries. The leaders we have followed and fought for have fallen silent and numb to our suffering honor and the cries of humanity. When it comes to moments of great strife, turians stay calm but this do not mean we must remain passive. We are not the Batarians and the Hierarchy is not their bastard hegemony. When the time comes, we must wield our war machine to take down Arterius and his pet projects. I refuse to make our regime a part of it and he will not pry the humans under our care away from us. We will fight this war with the iron-clad honor and efficiency that has always been expected of our kind. Is that clear?"

By the end of it, there was now a roiling fire in the turian's eye, fierce and determined.

"Understood, Commander."

"Get to your assigned duties."

"Yes, sir!"

The patriotic fervor that befell the turian's form carried over to his alien salute before he disappeared from view, fumbling with his armor along the way. Shepard didn't expect that sentiment to persist once he stared down the porcelain thrones that were now under his charge.

"My orders, ma'am?"

"Have you finished with the check?"

A brief moment of hesitation.

"Yes, ma'am."

"You are dismissed."

The turian called Fedorian shuffled his way out the door, head-bowed down as if expecting a spray of bullets coming his way. All too soon, Shepard's unexpected back-up had fled. His calm and collected breathing betrayed no hint of the rising terror pounding in his ears. He stifled a wince as a chair screeched its way into position. For a few moments, there was only the sound of alien humming and metal tinkering. Finally, there was a small click and the ancient human music came back on, (all the songs Shepard grew up with, and kept as a memento of his late father). This time, a different song was playing and Shepard immediately stiffened as Barry Manilow softly played over invisible speakers.

"I know you're awake, Shepard."

He disguised his brief spasm over a deep breath as acid seemed to set fire to a spot on his neck. The sudden distortion of hearing left as quickly as it came. Beyond that, Shepard gave no hint of movement besides the steady, deep breathing that made his chest cave inward and outward rhythmically. He didn't dare risk opening his eyes again so Shepard carefully mulled over the thick, alien accent in which she spoke. The nuances were clear with the way she compensated for some sounds due to her biology as if bits and pieces of human language were being thrown into a turian trash-compacter. A slight but palpable hum followed each word like an active mass effect shield at close range. The translator must have been taken off.

Maybe she was trying to call his bluff and didn't really know, so Shepard remained quiet, focusing on breathing in and out . . . and those damned lyrics. Every part of him prickled with embarrassment, a feeling that had been taken out of him a long time ago ever since Basic training. Why it had decided to crop up then was not exactly clear.

"Interesting. I didn't make you out to be a romantic."

Shepard silently swore under his breath.

"There's more to you than what meets the eye . . . and I'm going to find out what it is. A recon scout never gets caught that easy. Why the Alliance decided to 'drop the ball', as you humans say, and send an informed officer like you . . . is beyond me for the moment. It seems like your species is practically begging to lose."

To any human worth his brains, that would have been clear mockery but Shepard detected another subtle undertone in the ever so mysterious flanging, a sort of disappointment. Somehow, Solana had sensed it, the way he was fending off the interrogator's assault.

The tension rapidly building in the air was being cut down as quickly as it was rising mainly due to the infernally pesky lyrics waving around.

"There's no point in faking it anymore. The VI monitoring your vitals sent me a notification as soon as you awoke. Either way, I don't need a machine to tell me the obvious. A child is better at making a convincing sleeper than you are."

A snarky remark died on the cusp of Shepard's lips. He didn't go to all this effort of keeping still just to give up. Unbeknownst to him, Solana reclined back against her chair, the equivalent of a knowing smirk coloring her slanted mandibles before darkness clouded the gesture once again.

"Fine. Play it like that . . . but you must understand this. Whatever you think you know about us, forget it. Forget what the chain of command has told you and let go of your experiences at the hands of my fallen brothers and sisters in arms. In order for this to work, you must do this. I know I am asking a lot from you."

She huffed in mild derision as she lightly toyed with the iDroid's music settings listlessly.

"Truth be told, I'm asking a great many things from fellow soldiers nowadays but for the survival of our sacred honor and your species, it is absolutely imperative. You must have a lot of questions but I am prepared to answer them . . . in due time."

 _Fat chance of that,_ Shepard snarled internally.

That particular train of thought flew off the rails as something completely unexpected happened. In a single heart-stopping moment, the limp hand at his side was enveloped by thick, taloned fingers. To say his whole body stiffened under the contact was an understatement. His already frayed senses were shot by a systemic spasm of all his acquired reflexes squealing for action which were quickly chased down by the primal fight-or-flight instinct. At the same time, a resurgent course of pain barreled through the same network . . . and so came all the memories like a flood, robbing him of reason.

The beatings . . . the slashes . . . the shattered leg.

Amidst the cacophony of the heart monitor, Shepard slowly turned to face the alien. Only a single, solitary word came to mind, bubbling up over the raging tide like flotsam.

"Please . . ."

All he got in response was a faint series of clicking as she smoothly maneuvered around the edge of the bed. Shepard followed the turian's movements as she rapidly tapped something into the holographic monitor of the IV. Instantly, a shaky measure of calmness set in the human's senses.

Now in sudden deliriousness, he blinked at her as she quickly knelt at the side of the bed. Briefly, she whispered softly in her alien language, completely unfiltered and bare, out of range from his translator implant. It didn't sound remotely like the harsh orders barked across the battlefield.

"What? I don't . . ."

The turian shook her head, silencing his protests. With a steely gaze, she zeroed in on his eyes.

 _"I'm sorry."_

With that, she rose to her feet and briskly walked away.

Shepard did the only thing he knew how to do amongst all confusion. He started counting sheep.

 _***NML***_

Others would call it coincidence. Shepard called it karma.

For most of his subsequent dreams thereafter, they were plagued by bleating sheep. At first, it started out in true dreary fashion. Only a few, cloud-like sheep wandered towards him, bumping heads with the others and bleating occasionally.

Then, it became all out chaos. Long after he was unable to count, the platoon of sheep took a turn for the worse. They bleated worse than the din of gunfire. Some sprouted head-horns and were nudging him insistently. A few were head-butt wrestling each other. Many were plowed down like bowling pins by renegade battering rams. Others had insect-like mandibles for mouths and were in hot-pursuit of the few stragglers, all the while, the flanging in their bleats getting even worse.

The ones nudging him began to speak in unison, calling his name in flanging tones, louder and louder every time like a demonic chant . . .

 _"SHEPARD!"_

For a moment, blackness engulfed him before his senses regained their pulse. The lone soldier gasped and coughed his way into consciousness, doubling over as his ribcage shuddered underneath the wallop. It wasn't until the talons left his shoulders when he noticed the titanic form of a looming turian above him.

Before he could even eek out a yell, the turian clamped a massive paw over his mouth, gouging out lines of blood along his jawbone.

"Damn it, human! I'm trying to save you!"

Already fueled with a shot of morning adrenaline, Shepard ignored his words and threw a right hook at the alien's mandibles. The turian caught the would-be blow in his hands, using the momentum of Shepard's strike to spin the human around in a choke-hold, pinning his arms behind his back like a trained cop. He shot a flurry of kicks at the cot as he was almost half-carried off the bed, the covers entangling themselves around him.

In a small, infinitesimal part of his brain, the human wondered why his legs felt like they were being drenched in lukewarm liquid. It became all too apparent as the bed covers began to stain red.

"Stop struggling!" the turian roared in his ears. The ringing in his temple was further amplified as Shepard rammed his skull back into the alien's forehead. There was a pained grunt and the hold failed as they both tumbled to the ground. To the human, the fall felt like it was from a height of three meters when he finally connected with the floorboards. The smell of rough, sawed lumber jumped into his nostrils, propelling him into another coughing fit as he clutched his pulsing, landing shoulder as if it were about to fall apart.

The human propped himself up on his elbows, shifting his weight to his un-harmed side. He managed to catch a glimpse of a pair of menacing three-taloned feet before one of them punted him in the gut. Like a deflated soccer ball, he rolled off to the side and under one of the cots, the wind having been knocked out of him.

The turian pounced in after him, securing him in another choke-hold in the relative darkness and claustrophobia of the bed's bowels. In the next moment, his flailing legs were secured in an awkward embrace with the alien's own uniquely bowed-back legs.

"Spirits, listen to me! You're in danger, you dense pyjak!"

When his struggles were clearly an exercise in futility and his muffled screams became hoarse with exhaustion, the human finally gave up. The rough hewn scent of the alien's sweat-covered metallic carapace acted like watered-down bleach for his nostrils. Through the rapidly developing haze, Shepard had to blink around to make sense of the environment. The alien sunlight washing over the cabin was nearly blinding. The clouds of dust that were coughed up by their brief scuffle was framed in the illumination, waving every which way on the winds whims.

Then Shepard heard it. His body knew it even before the information reached his brain. His last vestigial struggles immediately ceased and his breathing slowed to a near standstill. The electrical impulses sent straight into his brain was familiar, information he had internalized and chewed on subconsciously. It was voice he could recognize anywhere. The (still awkwardly close) alien body semi-underneath him froze too and the steam that had been building on the nape of the human's neck gradually began to cease as well.

"WHERE IS HE?"

"Can't take no for an answer, Spectre? Unlike your bullet-ridden subjects, I'm not the person you should be threatening, Arterius."

"I hope you're well aware that I can shoot you where you stand if you so much as displease me. I care nothing for your lineage."

"Jealous? A bareface like you understands nothing about the honor required to participate in this conflict. Go wage your war elsewhere. Spirits knows there's enough trouble out there to keep your hands occupied."

There was a single deafening bang that struck the cabin. For a few horrible moments, Shepard thought it was a gunshot.

"Careful, Solana or your detective brother will find your corpse in time for New Year's. I'm willing to bet that would put a damper on his investigation."

The floorboards reverberated with a lone impact, the shadow in the doorway shifting into a blob as the female turian coughed adamantly.

"It's not my fault you couldn't keep track of a single human. I thought you were more resourceful than this . . . or are the legends about you as false as a child's cautionary tale?"

"Get in there. I'm not playing your little game anymore. There's no way that pyjak was walking anytime soon. Move."

That was when the two figures came into view. Solana's back was to the eavesdroppers, moving, _prowling,_ backward slowly as she firmly stared down the barrel of the gun pointed at her chest. It was the first time Shepard had ever seen a turian out of armor. The female turian was wearing something head-scratchingly close to civilian attire, highlighting her taut spinal crests ( _and a certain pair of unmentionables_ ) at the angle that Shepard was forced to watch in. Even in the shadows, the so-called Spectre's wolfishly blue eyes shined with almost unnatural brightness.

The human quickly shifted his gaze away from the estranged pair as the (still-unknown) alien body underneath him, whom Shepard was ironically becoming more intimately familiar with as time wore on, jerked as if frightened. He switched his gaze to the side in time to see the turian hook his talons on the misshapen pile of covers lying in the open and surreptitiously drag it in with him into the already cramped space. The alien made a soft noise, half-way between a grunt and a growl. The purpose of it became clear as his free hand re-affirmed the grip on his throat before he snaked his left arm out, leaving the bond half-weakened.

The neck exercises Shepard was being put through started taking its toll. One of the turian's mitts was clamped on his Adam's apple, although the grip had relaxed enough to indicate a certain measure of trust from the alien's part, allowing for a bit of wiggle room to lightly switch shoulders at the cost of shallow cuts along the plane of the alien's talons. When the human dared to shift his gaze once more to the left as a miniscule but insistent hum started pricking at his senses, he found a very real heavy pistol aimed right at the unaware Spectre's head.

Instantly, the human's guts twisted at the sight. The Spectre's form had temporarily become a living mirror as the Sun seemed to partition a spotlight for the turian's facial exoskeleton, reflecting blinding daggers into the eyes of the reluctant audience. It quickly dissipated for the human to get a good look at the man, and the monster.

Even for a turian, his face would be considered alien enough to do a double-take. In addition to the typical combed-back look of turian horns, another pair protruded from each side of his skull-like cheekbones, swept back to mingle with the rest. The alien's mandibles were unnaturally thin and ever-so-slightly listing to the side, enough to be noticeable. The discrepancy highlighted a thin but numerous set of white markings around his concave mouth, distinctly looking like another set of crudely drawn teeth. The seemingly unique array of the turian's facial plates looked worn, even cracked with lines and wrinkles marring the living armor. With some shock, Shepard realized he was gaping at a truly _aged_ turian . . . old but not elderly. That simple distinction was clear in the very manner the turian held himself; ram-rod straight and without a single sign of an unsteady aim.

"So you mean to tell me that you don't know where this . . . Shepard-human is?"

"Yes, that's what I've been trying to get through your thick skull this whole time."

The turian cocked his head to the side, gesturing straight at the bed underneath which they were hidden.

"Mind if I have a look around?"

The alien's thick but smooth voice was low and threatening, tinged with a worrying amount of smugness.

"Make yourself at home . . . but I see you've already begun doing just that."

The walking nightmare encroached upon their hiding spot until the hidden pair could only see the turian's armored shin. For a long moment, the two held their breath at the same time before the Spectre began to go up and down the row of cots, occasionally running a talon through the covers. A resonating cacophony of clicking seemed to fill the room. Shepard had no idea where it was coming fromIt was a near agonizing process to watch as the turian seemed to be stalling for _something._ At one point, his head suddenly swiveled around and he began to stomp his way towards their cot once again.

There was a noise from above them and the human stared bug-eyed at the dusty mattress. The turian underneath him shifted his weapon to the right hand, pressing it straight into the soft cushion.

Saren's feet shifted slightly towards the deathly still female turian who had been tracking his every movement with unshakeable attention. That is, until there was a visible change in her own skull-like face, mandibles splayed open for a fraction of a second.

"Care to comment?"

For one heart-beat too long, she was silent.

"One of my men stayed too damn close to one of the prisoners while we were escorting them to their new dwelling. That was the result."

The Spectre huffed and there was a gentle ruffle from the covers above.

"So tell me, is this human still with us?"

Solana's face contorted into something almost unrecognizable until Shepard realized it was a smile.

"That's cute."

For a long moment, there was no movement except for bated breaths until the Spectre holstered his weapon.

"You can carry on with your duties. Your stead-fast dedication and loyalty to the Hierarchy is . . . sickeningly evident."

The female turian approached him slowly before clasping her talons behind her back, chest puffed out in a measure of respect. . . though it only seemed to be more from routine obligation than actual deference. The gesture seemed almost remarkably human until the turian bared her throat.

"I hope that concludes our session." It was more of a statement than a question but the Spectre duly considered it.

"What happened there?"

Solana stared at the male turian until the Spectre indicated with a talon to his own throat. The frown in her mandibles deepened as she cautiously inclined her head and jerked back in surprise, bringing a hand to her throat.

"It's nothing. That same prisoner managed to get to me too. Nothing I couldn't handle."

When her hand reluctantly fell away, the human noticed the blotchy blue and purple bruise that ravaged her neck, done by his own handiwork. He had to look away for a moment to bug-bomb the vague feeling of guilt out of his head. He'd analyze the few survivors at a later time.

 _That's twice now. Get it together,_ he chastised.

"It's a shame that human isn't still alive. I would make him answer for harming such a . . . specimen of turian nobility." The male turian cast an appreciative glance over her figure and Solana's mandibles flared angrily at the implication.

"Perhaps in another life."

He slid the Carnifex pistol back into its holster and made his way to the exit. However, he paused in the doorway, armored shin and elbow leaning against the wall casually. For a few moments, he lingered there before facing Solana once again, his cold blue eyes gleaming with hellfire.

"In any case, I feel I should give you due warning. This will be the first and last time that any person under my charge will escape like that. I do not appreciate being the fool and this human will pay for that disrespect. I will hunt down that pyjak to its nest and I will tear apart anyone and anything who keeps him from me. Anything."

He made a choreographed move out the door before pausing again at the landing, nearly making Shepard groan out loud in frustration. A deeply unnerving smirk played across Saren's face as he flexed his talons in sudden mirth.

"Just so we don't misunderstand each other, I've taken the liberty of acquiring a few test-subjects from your ranks. I hope you don't mind."

Outside the cabin, there was a series of pained grunts and cries coinciding with a rapid thumping in the dirt. It almost sounded human.

Solana was staring at the scene with wide eyes, facing away from the pair, but if a turian could pale, she did so from ear to ear (figuratively speaking). The only indication of her inner turmoil was her talons curling slowly into her palm, shaking with undeniable rage.

"You're welcome to join us, if you want. We are going to ride on the wave of progress, regain that storied strength of ours that has atrophied for so long. All turian-kind will rejoice in the age of broken shackles. No longer will our race be at the mercy of the galactic community, crippling us of our resolve, our resources, our collective identity. Turians have lost the path amidst this chaos. Humanity is nothing but a stepping stone for our ascension. You don't need to concern yourself with these pawns. Join us."

Her mandibles flexed once, impossibly wide as her breath steamed in the cold air. For a brief moment, the tension in her arched legs seemed about ready to spring into action, to lunge at Saren and rip off that smug glint in his eyes. Solana did none of that, opting instead to bow her head in defeat.

"As an officer and representative of the Hierarchy Navy, I will have to respectfully decline."

A flash of violent insanity raced past his cold blue eyes before Saren huffed with amusement once again. The very same holographic device Solana was using in the installation appeared over his forearm, beeping almost immediately cut-off with a lazy wave of his hand.

"You're missing out on the opportunity of a life-time. If you feel at any time disappointed with your meager posting, radio in. I trust you know the frequency."

With those words, his retreating form shimmered with sunlight and he was gone. The raging wave of tall grass could be heard over the din of uncloaked stealth-engine technology. Shepard was well familiar with the Mantis-class troop carrier employed by the turians. The rise of harsh alien barking coincided with the panicked screams that hit the air, and Shepard was transported back into the memory of an untested soldier, unable to do anything as Shanxi burned.

For a long time, it seemed that most of the world was holding its breath as the ship lifted off and disappeared over the horizon.

After a few moments, Solana went to the door and scanned the scene.

"It's clear. You can come out now."

The turian underneath him promptly pushed him off with a disgusted grunt and rolled out. For the first time in what felt like hours, the human could breathe again . . . so it made sense that he would instantly choke on air, setting fire to the slashes on his cheek. The painkillers were wearing off and he was slowing being turned into a useless lump in the process. He lay there, arms crossed and legs curled (which still felt slick with blood) and wondered if he could just wither down there in the musty darkness like a mummy, forgotten to the world.

"Help me carry him," the male turian barked out. That moment of relative peace was shattered as two pairs of bird-like vices dragged him out from underneath the bed like a corpse in the middle of the mafia. Despite his intermittent protests, the two managed to dump him back into the cot. Like a pitiful worm, he wiggled into a better position on his back, silently muttering variations of pained noises all the way.

"Victus, where the hell did they come from? Who did they take?"

"I'm not sure. I'll have a report sent to you as soon as possible."

"Damn it. I thought we would have more time to prepare but Saren has just forced our hand."

"He could've completely blown our cover. I think we should reconsider the worth of this endeavor . . . this human. He is too set in his ways to contribute anything to our regime."

"I'm not about to lose another human to Arterius and his thugs. Your reservations are duly noted, Victus but I came too far to quit now. The human will change."

"But at what cost? We can't afford to make a mistake now. Most of our men already have their reservations and they count on you to not let a murderous spy into our midst. Trust me, that is the last thing we need after this hit."

"I'll assuage those concerns in due time but this human needs rest."

"Rest? He head-butted me!"

For a long moment, there was simply silence as Solana chewed on his words.

 _"_ It's odd. For all your criticism about harboring this human, I didn't expect you to be ready to shed blood for him. Throwing him off the scent was brilliant. You may have just saved him."

"I didn't do it for the human. I did it for you . . . Commander."

It took a brief moment but the implication didn't glance by Shepard. Some things still translated remarkably well across species. The lingering silence and the pointed mention of rank confirmed it for him. It was a classic case of ship-fever, as Vega had once explained to him when Shepard was a green-as-grass recruit wandering doe-eyed around Arcturus Station. Shepard resisted the urge to vomit. To his credit, Victus tried to remedy the situation posthumously.

"I knew that you would have my hide if I didn't keep him safe, that's all," he said quickly, trying to manage a weak laugh. Either Solana didn't notice or chose to ignore it.

"We need to regroup. Get our bearings. Gather everybody over the age of sixteen and settle them in the pavilion by 0400 for my address. Get a set of new covers from the laundries and bring Mordin here, kicking and screaming if you have to. Get that wound of yours tended to as well. I need everybody on their feet. Go!"

Victus marched down the same path as the Spectre, lightly clutching his forearm as a single blue drop seeped into the floorboards. He stopped in the doorway and looked over his shoulder, his stormy grey eyes crackling with electricity from the sun's rays.

"I'm going to reek of this human's stench for days. This better be worth it."

Shepard only remembered two things after that frightful experience. One, was the absolutely acrid scent of blood on the covers. Unbeknownst to him, the red blood seeping from his torn stitches had quickly corrupted the blue ichor, erasing Victus's brief sacrifice from history.

The other was a brief murmur that barely managed to filter through the translator, furtive and ever so brief so as to make him question if he ever heard it in the first place. The vague outline of Solana's mandibles twitched as she half-leaned, half-sank into the bed next to him, gazing after Victus's shadow long after it had disappeared from the porch.

"It will be."


	5. Chapter 2: The Disgraced Part II

**Chapter 2: The Disgraced**

 _Part II_

Shepard was not a diplomat.

He didn't have the patience nor the temperance (or skill) to spout meaningless political rhetoric at aliens. . . or anyone for that matter. For those reasons, it made sense that the sticky situation he was in would inevitably devolve that way. Then again, having no sense of time as days seemed to merge mercilessly together tended to do to evoke that sort of reaction in people.

When he awoke again, the night was on the cusp of dawn. The light illuminating the barracks was subject to a chaotic battle from the alien sun's creeping ascent to the heavens and the thick blast of a blizzard in full swing. Faintly in the distance, he could hear barked orders and random clatter instead of the crowing rooster Shepard would very much have preferred. Snow drifted inside in lazy spirals which translated all the way to Shepard's shivering form. Every shaky exhale spewed a pitiful icy flame on contact with the air. He fitted a silencer to his chattering teeth and sat up, burying his face in his hands. In an effort to rid himself of the blurriness in his vision, the human pinched the area where the bridge of his nose and his eyelids met and kneaded vigorously. When his hands came away, a near insignificant speck of crystallized blood sat in his palm, mocking him. It worked better than any alarm clock he ever had set up.

After a brief shock of pain as punishment for his eagerness, Shepard gently searched and traced his wounds. Where stitches had once been, a series of crusted segments now lay. Encouraged, he pushed off an avalanche worth of covers as much as he dared in the biting weather. He didn't account for the awkward hospital gown in his way. Now he couldn't examine the talon marks on his legs without stripping completely bare and he had no intention of being on display for an unexpected turian audience. Shepard settled with trying to regain feeling in his legs, a fact that set his heart racing with the implications. As he tried to shake his right leg awake, he noticed only a twinge in his previously thought busted kneecap, and nothing else. Somehow, they had managed to repair the interrogator's damage in no time at all. Usually, injuries like these should have rendered him combat inoperable for a month even with Sirta's hasty advancement of medi-gel through the final stages. If the turians had access to this sort of medical equipment, how many threats had the humans neutralized just so the aliens could get up and be ready to fight again the next day?

Rather than continuing that bleak train of thought, Shepard began hiking up the hospital gown, pausing only to steel himself for what probably lay underneath. Instead of a straight clean talon slash right though his skin, the now only slightly bloody wound showed the remains of a jagged and uneven cut as if it were gutted and hacked for food by a blunted knife. His puckered and red skin was still stitched together but even those harnesses were rapidly dissolving away from advanced healing. Just another day and he would probably be up and about.

Only, Shepard had no intention of sticking around till tomorrow.

With that thought, he glanced around. It was one of the most bone-headed rookie mistakes he had ever made, not paying special attention to the very much aware alien form entangled and buried underneath the wadded bed covers in the cot next to him.

The howling gust of wind that ghosted through the cabin and snapped at his exposed organic flesh nearly derailed all thoughts of a getaway from his mind. It almost convinced him to stay in the relative warm of the multiple strata worth of covers beckoning to him.

It took him a lot of inner strength to simply shrug off the covers and swing his legs over the edge.

At the far end of the cabin, a rather convenient set of crutches was propped up against the frame of the open-air doorway. Now, all he had to do was get over there first. He glared defiantly at the snowy scene outside the cabin, breathing ragged with anticipation.

Shepard had done a lot of hard things in the brief span of his life. Gunning down his first turian, trying to climb up that absolutely heinous set of stairs up to his squadron's barracks at Arcturus Station after a rather ill-advised game of shots with James Ashley. . . but nothing compared to his attempt at getting to the crutches.

First came the landing. He pushed himself off the ledge and his knees buckled instantly underneath his weight, forcing him to slam his previously unharmed knee down in front of him to prevent a face-plant of epic proportions against the floorboards. The unforeseen consequence of that was definitively worse. The inertia of his hasty maneuver earned him a full-frontal head-butt with the metal frame of the bed in front of him. The bad influence of one James Vega began to show itself here as he gasped out every curse word he remembered in Spanish (which was remarkably more extensive than he thought). Shepard clutched his tattooed forehead and rocked back and forth as (manly!) tears started pouring down his cheeks.

After he had sufficiently beat up the offending piece of metal, the human started the long process of getting back to his feet. Twenty-four years old and already a cripple. Shepard laughed bitterly at the sheer irony of his situation. In protest of his efforts, the frosty weather outside began to churn and howl louder than before, cutting through his quivering form like Swiss Cheese and chilling him to his very core.

"Where's Florida when you need it?" he muttered through clenched teeth to no-one in particular.

He snarled at the sheer frailty of his trembling arms as he fisted and clawed at the sheets with all his strength to gain purchase on the slippery satin-like surface. With the increasing transfer of weight to his legs as he straightened, his efforts began to resemble more like wrestling with a pile of goo. Shepard's knobby legs began to clack together and wobble dangerously at the frequency of an earth-quake.

It only made sense that he would make second-contact with the floor again. He uttered a subdued howl of desperation at the wood floor before he planted his face on said floor. Before the bubbling signs of a tantrum could begin to cloud his mind, the sheen of expertly carved metal directed his gaze towards the underwire frame of his bed.

In his deliriousness, he had almost forgotten the hidden weapon he had desperately wedged in between the mattress frame. Victus's combat knife glinted a rather eerie sort of silver, the ivory-like hilt embossed with a rather cheery image of an ancient turian battle whose significance could not be studied much further due to the war effort. In it, a lone turian in full-body armor stood at the top of a mountain of corpses, clutching a rather odd set of firearms as some unknown beast of a being, reduced to his own bloodied and gruesomely hacked off biological armor, leapt at the armored figure with a massive hammer. It was the same motif time and time again but Shepard was no archaeologist. That job would have best suited his father who died long before he could go full nerd mode on any alien artifacts.

Shepard vowed that he would return that deed tenfold to the turians but the more he stared at the knife, the more it frightened him. The human had no idea what he was dealing with here. He was out of the installation's veritable frying pan but his escape led right into the fire of an unsanctioned, possibly rogue faction of turian sympathizers, a thought that brought him no comfort. Being at the mercy of aliens and relying on their continued good-will was a situation that simply begged for it to blow up on him. If they were anything like those carved figures . . . he shivered at the thought.

Truth was, he felt no more safer here under the close scrutiny of the deeply unnerving Solana Vakarian than back at that installation. The female turian wanted something from him, information maybe. Once he got back with his own people, he could think and sort this all out.

In the eyes of the brass, this particular reconnaissance assignment would be considered an unconventional success, gaining crucial information on the turian war effort in the midst of capture . . . if Shepard ever managed to get off this distant planet that he once called home.

Rubbing his arm to create heat from friction, he desperately shot out his vulnerable hand and snatched the weapon from its perch. With no available pockets at his disposal, he engineered a makeshift holster for the dagger, pinching together the hospital gown at his side and slid the knife right through it. Luckily, the blade was much heavier than the hilt. Hugging his body to regain the heat it had so quickly lost, he set his sights back on the crutches.

Rather than trying to salvage any remaining dignity he had left and forget that the whole thing ever happened, Shepard began to baby-crawl his way down the row of cots. Never before had something been this close and yet be so far way. He inched along like a worm with his elbows propelling him forward while dragging his useless stumps of a leg along with him. At certain points on that journey, Shepard enlisted the support of each bed in subsequent attempts to get back on his feet, all of which failed tremendously.

Sometime during the next hour, he was now within arm's reach of the crutches. Scaling the mountain that it was, there was bound to be error along the way. The sheer weight of the crutches nearly made him drop it to the floor like a makeshift alarm for turian reinforcements. Luckily, it landed on the armpit pads, creating a dull whump instead. With his strength rapidly failing him, the crutches swooped dangerously low as he tried to straighten them up. He got to his knees and began to push himself up with the padded hand-holds, unfurling each leg until his feet was flat on the ground. The rather ill-fitting baby-blue socks he was shamefully adorned with caught on an out-stretched splinter and he was almost back to square one. After a dangerous amount of teetering, he managed to carefully continue with his right leg.

With more close-calls than he could count, Shepard had reached the point where he managed to jam his armpits into the designated support and finally get back on his feet, as evolution intended.

The relief that came through him at that moment threatened to bust his lungs out of his chest. Like most things in a series of unfortunate events, there would be one last finishing blow that would take care of his momentary consolation.

His last experience with crutches was a soccer injury when he was fourteen. He didn't remember it being this difficult. Unwilling to exert himself any further, he stayed hunched over the supports, squinting down at the scene that lay before him. Up to this point, the sun had blinded him whenever he dared try to place his location. Through the thick of the mini-blizzard, he could see a giant sprawling structure lying just beyond his range of vision and it tugged at the edge of his memory.

 _First order of business, turn yourself into a snug burrito, then investigate._

As he was about to realign himself back towards the barracks to accomplish said goal, a voice broke through the weakening howl of the snow-laden wind. The chill from the remaining vestiges of the storm couldn't compare with the shiver that ran through his body at the distinctively feminine voice of Solana Vakarian.

"You know, I wish you had stopped when you banged your head like that."

Pulling the knife from its MacGyver worthy position, he spun around as best he could on crutches and rather pitifully pointed it at the raptor-like figure. His resolve wavered at the sight of the emaciated turian.

Over the course of possibly a few days, Solana seemed to have aged a decade. The vulnerable flesh around her sunken eye-socket looked crinkled and worn, possibly indicating a lack of sleep. The intricate blue markings on her face gleamed with sweat, which didn't seem possible in this kind of weather. Her comparatively stocky frame was near non-existent, likened rather to a malnourished kid back on the slums of Earth. In that regard, her clothes hung loosely off her frame. Yet, there was evidence of tearing, exposing her armored shoulders and hints of her tapering mid-section. The fledgeling roots of the distinctive turian head-horns had begun to peek out of their sheath at the top of her head, a feature typically associated with the males. Shepard didn't know how that was possible. The same could be said of her calf spurs, a rather perplexing feature of turian anatomy. It was far longer than the average member of their species, and unnaturally thick. Even her mandibles seemed different, stockier and longer, which stuck out like a sore thumb in the thin constitution she had been reduced to.

She took a step forward, more firmly than he thought possible in her condition. Shepard repeated the shaky gesture with his knife, backing away as best he could on crutches.

"Stop. I don't want to hurt you."

And he sincerely didn't. Despite his command, the female turian padded closer. That's when Shepard noticed that she was completely barefoot.

 _Just when you thought the claws was all it . . . How the hell is she standing on her toes?_

"You won't get very far in your condition," Solana said simply, pausing only a meter away from him. His wide eyes shot back up from her toes which was a mistake because even at that distance, Shepard found himself having whiplash trying to make eye contact with her towering form.

 _Talk about legs that go on for miles._

"Yeah? Well, speak for yourself," he retorted, a counter-attack that was immediately undermined by his clumsy stumble backwards, trying to put some tangible amount of distance between them. He quickly glanced back with worry. Something was very wrong and he needed an escape plan fast. At this point, it was either brave the cold or spend another minute with this freak show.

Solana forced a huff of amusement at his joke, her awkward mandibles flaring outward reflexively. Her bare toe-talons curled and clacked rhythmically with the floor-boards, gripping the crevices in the floor with her hook-like talons.

 _Oh goody, something else she can drive me crazy with._

The air had significantly calmed and the worst of the distortion had faded away, giving an eerily quiet quality to this encounter. Despite his bid to effuse strength, he began to shiver uncontrollably and his teeth began to join in the lamentable chorus. The turian capitalized on that momentary display of weakness.

"You'll freeze to death long before you find any fellow human. I know you don't like it but this is the safest place for you." Her tone communicated diplomacy but her eyes stared back at him as if he were a piece of meat. Fear began to cloud Shepard's mind and he stammered out his next retort as his heel bumped against the gate of the ramp behind him.

"I'm not kidding. Stay the hell away from me!" His voice seemed tinny and frail, rather than resembling anything like his war cry.

A brief hint of the feral nature of her ancestors broke through her reserved demeanor but dissipated just as quickly as the next gust of wind. The turian's eyes narrowed and flashed with annoyance.

"Don't be foolish. There's nowhere for you to run. Though, you'd make excellent target practice for our snipers. I do not wish to repeat myself. Get back in here and I will forget that this incident ever happened."

"No deal." Some of the strength had returned to his defiant stare, but every fearful breath of air chilled his very lungs and set them on fire. Already, his armpits started aching underneath his weight.

Shepard didn't know why he kept looking back. Maybe he was expecting a miracle, one in which the hero in the vid is saved by some unknown force. Maybe he was expecting a shot in his back, though in this weather, he probably never would see the sniper even if he tried.

For that reason, he was surprised that the storm had suddenly ceased to exist. The brutish sun had shooed away the remaining threads of the lingering storm but the palpable sheen of crimson from earlier had ceased, replaced by a dull yellow in it's awkward phase in the sky. Subsequently, the mystifying structure hidden behind the snowy curtain now had a face and it was one that Shepard was horrified to look into.

"You are making it unnecessarily difficult to keep you alive. I don't know if you're stubborn or just plain idiotic but if you don't think I'll drag you in here with my bare claws . . ."

"Hello? Shepard?"

In that moment, the looming danger in front of him was replaced with another.

Suddenly, he was transported back into the boots of a very different man. A man that was barely in his teens and already well into his rebellious years, a simple colony kid that had snuck off from the local community high school as a stowaway in the back of an Alliance Issue APC.

Outpost Tempest, as affectionately nicknamed by its heavily armed residents. In reality, Camp Zion was home to the only division of Alliance Marines stationed on Shanxi for the protection of it's fledgling residents, as well as keeping a covert eye on the neighboring mass relay. It was not long until that very same relay spewed hellfire on the Northern mountains and brought the Skull-faced legions to bear on them. They never stood a chance.

Many of those men and women, alone and outnumbered, Shepard had known personally. He was just a kid at the time, trying to understand what his mother did for a living, a detail that she had tried to keep away from him for so long. As a child on an unfamiliar alien world, he used to stare in awe into the odd blue sky, knowing that his mother was somewhere up there in orbit, playing watchdog over him. It was the closest thing to god he had ever seen. That 'god' was shot down moments after the alien's arrival.

By the time the Alliance's Second Fleet received that world-changing distress call, Shepard knew that the relief would be too late. In that week-long transit from Arcturus Station to the Shanxi system, he had tossed and turned, trying to form an apology that he would never be able to deliver. The mysterious faceless invaders haunted his dreams and waking hours, never for a brief moment releasing its tight grip on his heart. Some of his fellow comrades had family back on Shanxi and they too seemed lost in anguish. Ashley had a father, a general stationed on that planet. The drill-sergeant understood the importance of keeping their initial horror pre-occupied, tasking everyone with the fueling and loading of cargo in preparation for the long journey. It worked at the beginning but it soon just became a waiting game with only the dry, insistent hum of the engines and the gentle rustle in the barracks to remind them there was life on the ship.. It was worse than he could have possibly imagined.

In the span of few days, the planet's initial defenders had been routed and decimated by the dug-in, turian phalanx. The mountains had been their last stand, as they were punched and kicked away from every last stronghold in the cities. The relief didn't do much better; there was just too many of those damn locusts. Ragged and somehow in one piece, he remembered his heated argument with the soldier pushing him onto an evac shuttle while his home burned just a few miles in the distance. Couldn't the soldier understand that he wanted to die here?

So it was, that as his transport lifted away from the rapidly devolving runway, it would become one of the best seats in the house for the most devastating shot of the entire battle. It started out as a low-pitched whining, an earth-shaking tremor from the very heavens that had momentarily distracted him from his distant target. In the blink of an eye, an orbital slug touched down in the valley he had just come from. He never saw the end result, not the blinding white flash that utterly evaporated his home nor the maelstrom of water vapor and ash blotting out the angry sun. His consciousness was long gone before the heat wave battered their insect-like shuttle and that shrapnel tore through his body.

That was fourteen months ago and a very different man looked down upon the place of their last stand once again. Camp Zion lay before him, and he watched with increasing fury as turians off in the distance conducted repairs and scuffed the paint on the very weapons Shanxi's defenders died trying to use. Solana had called him foolish. She had no idea.

"Vakarian, sir, are you in here? Oh, thank the spirits, I've been looking for . . ."

Victus marched into the cabin, clutching a holographic data pad in has talons before he directed his gaze upwards and subsequently froze in place. Solana shifted her body only slightly, craning her neck to look at the newest member of the audience.

In that moment, Shepard had become that desperate, cornered animal back at the installation. Time seemed to slow down and his breathing came out in ragged snorts as his heart pummeled his ribs, knowing deep in the astral turmoil that was his gut, that this would become a point of no return.

Ditching the only things that kept him upright as evolution intended, he slammed the rubber base of his right crutch into the shin of the unsuspecting turian. Solana cried out in a mixture of shock and pain, collapsing to one knee. Without his support, Shepard crumbled to the floor as well but not before he swept out her uprooted leg from underneath her. As he dropped, he looped his arm around her neck, the dagger arched between his fingers like a pair of deadly chopsticks, hitting the damaged remained of her neck.

Though she was powerless to stop the initial assault, years of training sent her talons swinging back around to latch into his sides like glorified hooks. Shepard cried out as her talons pierced his skin. He knew that with one tug, she could spill his guts out on the floor right then and there. With his knife at her throat, the maneuver became a stalemate.

Victus reacted quickly, tossing the data pad in favor of his sidearm.

"Drop it. Now!"

Unadulterated adrenaline made him stumble over his initial words, the faint trickle of blood down his bare thighs the only thing keeping him grounded to the implications of his actions.

"Stay the hell back or your commander dies right here and now!" To prove he was serious, Shepard pressed the dagger harder into her throat, eliciting a few drops of pale blue ichor. Solana gurgled in pain as her free hand scrabbled for purchase on his choking arm, her mandibles flapping in alarm. Victus paled, before his iron determination set in. In quick succession, his mandibles clacked methodically against the plating around his concave mouth. It was Shepard's turn to pale as almost immediately, there was a chittering response in the distance.

"What the hell did you do?" Shepard breathed. The situation seemed to be devolving rapidly out his control and Victus knew it.

Sure enough, their audience grew to half a dozen as several haphazardly armored soldiers entered the compound, some with obscuring helmets. All of them were armed with laser-sight Phaeston's.

"Drop the dagger and get down on the ground now!" One of them barked.

"You kill me and you kill her! Is that what you want?"

The helmeted speaker bristled with anger, turning slightly to Lieutenant Victus for answers.

"Where the hell did he get a weapon?"

Shepard filled in the response for him. "Easy. Sloppy mistake on your part. You were so eager to get me off you, it was a simple lift. A rookie would have no trouble pulling the wool over you." Shepard pointed with an outstretched pinky towards Victus whose mandibles flared in contempt. The other armed guards looked at him expectantly to which he angrily waved them off.

"You lumbering oaf of a pyjak! If it weren't for me, for _us_ , Arterius would have killed you!"

"I don't need saving, least of all by a turian!" Shepard snarled and spat.

"You have a _*hngth*_ death . . . wish."

Everybody snapped to attention at the mere voice of Solana. Her grip on the human's arm had noticeably relaxed as she snorted with dry humor, wincing as the dagger hovered uncooperatively over her bulging throat.

"I understand you now. Oh, it's so obvious." Despite the pained gravel in her voice, it was tinged with relief . . . and _sympathy._ Slowly, her bird-like grip fell away from Shepard's arm and dropped to her side. She unsheathed her talons from his gut, earning a shocked grunt from the human, as her bloodied left hand fell to her side in surrender.

"You weren't expecting to get out alive. That's why you came to the installation, woefully outnumbered and with no chance of success. Just a few miles away, your home and your family lies in ruins. Despite our sacrifices, you battle us for every inch of ground. Right now, you haven't begun to make a bargain for my life. You wanted an excuse, a way out. I cheated you out of it."

Shepard's mind raced. In that brief split-second decision, he had never planned for anything like this. Suddenly, he found himself shivering for a very different reason.

"You feel responsible for the deaths of these colonists, as if you had abandoned your own men to a grim fate. Ravaged by guilt, torn apart by loss." She lightly shook her head and stared up at the ceiling in resignation. Turians couldn't cry but she would have wept for him in an instant.

"Spirits, grant him mercy."

"He wants death? I'll give it to him!" Victus snarled, taking a step forward. Solana held up a hand and with the force of her stare, sent him reeling back.

The ache in the human's heart intensified and he found his chest buckling underneath the silent sobs ravaging its way through his mind. His knuckles turned white with the intensity he was holding the dagger.

"No, that's impossible." he growled. "You don't - you can't- know anything about me." He found himself faltering, trying to regain the resolve that had fled from him so quickly.

"Jonathan? Look at me. You still have something to live for. Alright? Your father is alive!"

 _"What?"_

The human felt paralyzed and found himself unable to resist as she gently pushed the dagger down and shifted her weight to stare at him from the corner of her eyes. They shined with pure conviction and understanding. Human emotions that never seemed possible on an alien species light years away from home. Instead of a gaunt skeletal creature, he saw something truly _alive_ and hauntingly familiar.

"Adam's been so distraught but I had to keep you hidden. That doesn't matter anymore. Do you understand? He'll be so glad to see you."

Shepard shook his head in horror.

"How the hell do you know that name?"

She paused, her mandibles flicking out once in confusion. He raised the dagger again threateningly, small arms jostling to the ready around him.

"Answer me!"

"He told me! He told me everything. His exploits and accomplishments as an archaeologist on Earth in search of new adventures. How he followed his wife to Shanxi for her new posting. Adam explained to me his hopes and dreams for you on this planet. He called it ' a new start.'"

 _"Oh, god!"_ To say that it struck a nerve would be a huge understatement. Shepard found himself having to battle a torrent of tears and raw emotion. His fingers clenched and unclenched as hope, a feeling that he had closed himself off to so long ago, coursed through his system once again. After so long of adapting and surviving, it was like poison in his veins.

"That's a lie! I'll never be able to fulfill anything. I can't lead, I can't be diplomatic, I can't be a good goddamn soldier! But maybe . . . I can still do something to avenge those who died protecting this stupid rock. Only then can I get _rid_ of the dirt and blood buried underneath my fingernails."

The insanity that gripped Saren hovered just within arm's reach but the prospect didn't seem so bad after all. The memory of his parents was only a heartbeat away. One last kill for everlasting peace. Seemed like a fair price to pay.

With firm and steady hands, he raised the dagger.

"I'm sorry, father."

The sensation of falling. Instead of fear and panic, so many people describe it as a peaceful weightlessness just before you hit the ground. Despite our constant logic and reasoning, our dreams perpetuate this blissful illusion. We, flightless birds, are utterly convinced that we can ride the breeze into tomorrow. How can something we should fear be perceived as such a maelstrom of freedom in the child-like recesses of our minds?

The dagger fell from his fingertips, one by one, as gravity sent it careening away from his grasp. The embossed hilt glinted in the snowy light, clattering to the ground at Solana's outstretched feet. The tip of her mandibles skimmed the back of his hand, sending electricity arcing through his body as she gasped in shock. That brief moment of true first contact, when the enemy became a friend, was one of the best, most tumultuous sensations of all time.

As always, cruel fate decided to step in, chiefly in the form of a Phaeston ramming into the side of his skull. For a moment, everything went white, a dead-zone where his senses did not work in a cohesive unit. Shepard had the vague feeling that he was sprawled on the ground. Someone was yelling, and his head started feeling damp as if someone was pressing a warm towel to his forehead. Languidly, he massaged his shaved scalp and stared in confusion at the blood in his hand. A looming shadow of a titan strode above him, and the brief sensation of warmth that matted his forehead was suddenly gone. Sluggishly, he raised his head back up.

With a savage roar, the stock of the Phaeston came down a second time.

He never saw it land.

*** _NML_ ***

It was at points like these that Shepard felt like he was the only retched thing alive on this planet.

Moonlight peered into the cabin through the tinted greenhouse sun roof as Shepard's latest attempt to free himself failed. Twisted in an awkward position, he flopped his way to the center of the cot, hand cuff's clinking along annoyingly.

A dour, oppressive moisture clouded the air, tinted with the scent of raw earth and bitter plant scent. The domed glass roof of the greenhouse shined a balefully blue moonlight over the dust particles in the room. He found himself constantly shifting his weight on the foldable mattress. The springs dug into his skin like little tiny insects crawling along his spine. Trying to ignore the overwhelming urge to scratch the bloody welt on his scalp, he began to name every one of Shanxi's wilting indigenous plant species from the pitiful clay vases lining the cold, metal shelves.

When that began to fail, his military training took over and he began to name everything he knew about himself: his rank, his age, recent factual events. It was usually a stress-coping mechanism that every marine was taught from the beginning, something about medical doctors and their breakthroughs in psychology. So far, nobody had come up with an effective way of dealing with capture by aliens.

Nevertheless, it didn't stop him from trying.

"Let's see here, I've been kidnapped by a crazy alien woman and her army of goons, there's a welt the size of my fucking fist on my forehead, oh, don't remember how I got it either . . . and I'm rotting away in the oddest jail cell known to man. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid."

Shepard laughed bitterly to no one in particular, the jumbling cacophony echoing into the darkness.

"Talking to myself. Must be going crazy. No, I've been insane for a long while. Don't know why it keeps surprising me."

Firelight glowed underneath the creaky set of double doors across the room for what must have been hours. So far, no one had bothered to check up on him. John had never given much thought to how he would die. One reconnaissance mission gone wrong, one brutal interrogation passed. The end would come not with a bang, but a whimper.

With one final attempt, John struggled maniacally against the chains again before yelling with unbridled desperation, everything in his body aching with exhaustion. He attempted to calm his breathing as he scooted back onto his rumpled-beyond-repair pillow.

 _Now I'm just lying here, waiting for something. Death from absolute boredom._

 _And now starvation,_ he realized with a rumbling stomach. John could hear multiple conversations in an alien language outside along with almost human laughter pervading the night at times.

 _Either I'm already dead or I must be dreaming._

"Have you had enough?"

"JESUS!"

The result was electric, sending a spasm down his spine and reigniting the pain in his forehead. A distinctly turian figure melted away from the shadows on the far side of the room. The only thing that stood out were her distinctive blue markings on her facial plates, complemented by the blue haze filling the room. The edge of her golden irises glinted hungrily, as if Shepard were a piece of meat. If he hadn't been simply exhausted to care much, he probably would have wet the bed for the first time in seventeen years.

"Finally," John drawled, noticing how sore his throat was from dehydration.

Solana approached menacingly, taking step after step of dripping malicious intent. "I'm not sure whether I should kill you now or leave you there to starve," she growled.

"You'd be doing me a favor . . . if you struck me dead right now," he said, licking his lips. He wasn't the least bit perturbed by her show of force now.

"You're set on dying, human? Determined to make every one of us the enemy? Spirits, you nearly got yourself killed! I'm almost tempted to finish the job myself. You have no idea the kind of restraint I'm exhibiting right now, not to pry off your head and rend it from your shoulders!"

John propped himself up on his elbows, a fit of coughing seizing him.

"Then don't. I knew that I was never going to be able leave this place once I was caught. My transport is probably long gone by now. As far as they know, I'm already dead. I don't know what exactly you're trying to pull here but I do know that you aren't getting anything from me."

Solana scoffed, leaning lightly against one of the shelves, shaking her head.

"You still think we're here to torture you, is that it?"

John sighed as he flopped his way against the headboard in an attempt to sit upright.

"I don't know what to believe anymore. Up until fifteen years ago, we never had the distinct possibility of ever making contact with an alien civilization. Now, we are all fighting for our lives against a superpower we can barely hope to compete with. I lost my entire family in a single day. Eradication never seemed this glaringly possible. So if I take every one of your kind with a mountain of salt, you know why."

The turian rose to her full height and resumed her deadly approach. The flanging in her voice seemed to get worse with every word, giving it a truly demonic edge. "Spirits damn you! Don't think for a second you are the only one who lost something to this war! I gave up the respect and honor of my entire regiment to help your people. My family thinks I'm a traitor to turian society so don't talk to me about loss! What do I have to do to show you that you're safe? Stop acting like the entire galaxy will collapse if you aren't in a perpetual fight with us, Shepard!"

Underneath her steely gaze, there was more than a hint of choked desperation, a glassy countenance to her marble-like features. Oddly enough, he could detect total sincerity and conviction in her words. She wasn't lying. The pain was raw in her voice. She was like an open book compared to the males but he had a feeling she didn't care. As evidenced before, she had displayed a complete poker face when his interrogator had left.

"Then why go to the trouble of trying to convince me of that? I'm a stubborn human, as you no doubt know by now. Your species may be high and mighty but you aren't fucking saints. If you're anything like us, you must have some sort of angle. Hoping to shake me down for a few resources on the side? Extort me for easy info? I've got a lot of time on my hands but I refuse to add bullshit on my to-do list."

The turian was so close now that he began to sense the heady car shop smell roiling off her body. Her gnashing teeth hung like deadly stalactites at his angle of view. The sight was enough to sober him up a little and remind him he was treading straight into her particular danger zone.

In a more quiet voice, but with no less contempt, he continued.

"Don't tell me what loss is because you have no fucking idea what I'm going through!"

Solana seemed just about ready to slice him up into ribbons before her shoulders sagged and sorrow gleamed in her eyes.

"You don't know the one big thing about our people, do you?"

"I'm sure you're going to tell me." John raised his chained wrists toward her.

"Are you going to take these off me or are you going to kill me? I'd very much like to know where I'm standing," he said, taunting.

For a few moments, the turian made no movement whatsoever, her dual pistols ever so apparent against her hips. Then, she raised her wrist and a hologram appeared over her arm. Tapping in a few commands, the chains popped off Shepard's wrists in an instant.

Stunned beyond belief that he was still alive, John must have had an odd expression on his face, because the turian's eyes narrowed.

"Sadly, killing you is not part of my agenda. Neither is interrogation. I already know everything about Outpost Tempest. Where it's located, the lay-out, the level of protection . . . and the rather devious feint of it all. Operation Incisor, wasn't it?"

Startled and at a loss words, the gears in his head turned with veritable rust, but the conclusion sent little bits of electricity nipping all the way down to his toes. The only bargaining chip he had for his survival was lost forever.

"Shit."

"Arterius simply confirmed it for me . . but I'm not interested in that. Come on, we're leaving."

Shepard stayed frozen on the spot.

"Don't make me repeat myself."

Rubbing his bleeding wrists, John carefully swung his legs over the side of the bed and added some weight to them. At every increment, there was a complete lack of pain. Mystified, he stood slowly, wobbling a little bit.

"Any chance you have more of those-"

He ended that sentence with an expression of astonishment as Solana slammed him against the wall, the sharp tip of her elbow spurs eliciting a droplet of blood on the small of his back. He let out a cry of astonishment, trying very hard not to inhale the tiny insect right under his nose. The barrel of a gun was pressed forcefully into his shaved scalp, thermal clip humming at the ready.

"Pull an idiotic stunt like that again and I will personally make sure that what you experienced in that interrogation room is going to be nothing compared to what I'm going to do to you. Right now, you are my prisoner. Do I make myself absolutely clear?" A loud, tremulous buzz followed her words like an angry wasp.

A pause followed as Shepard mulled over how much he didn't want to respond.

"CLEAR?"

Her elbow moved away from his spine and she smacked him up upside the head with the flat of her palm. The wall groaned in protest as he seethed for words.

"Ow, ow, ow! Yes, you're clear. Crystal, god!"

She let go of him after another painful shove. His head throbbed painfully as John peeled himself away from the wall. Steeling his jaw back into alignment, he twisted on the spot, only to find his vision suddenly obscured by a UFO.

The bundle of cloth smacked him in the face before he had the remaining sense to catch its fall.

"You could have given me a warning," he exclaimed, utterly miffed for having to bend down and pick it up.

"Just put it on."

Shepard huffed dismissively, easing the stack of clothes onto a neighboring shelf, reaching around back to unbutton the clasps of the hospital gown, perhaps too eager to get a change of clothes. He was already two buttons in before he had the sense of mind to freeze, only to find her almond-shaped irises watching him expectantly from only a meter away.

"Uh, do you mind?"

She simply stared unblinkingly back at him.

"Can you turn around?"

It was only after a cursory scan that her eyes briefly lit up in realization. Much to Shepard's dismay, she stayed rooted to the spot. He dropped his arms back to his sides, resisting the sudden urge to hide his now-exceedingly vulnerable body with his arms.

"So how is this supposed to work? Is there a curtain around here I can use? Or . . .?"

"Get dressed. Unless you want to see how long you'll last in the cold?"

He opened his mouth to retort but closed it subsequently back. For a moment, he briefly considered walking out there like that. Well, nothing screams insanity like walking around in a hospital gown with your backside on display.

"Ummm, this is sort of like a deal breaker for me. There must be something we can work out. Maybe I can duck underneath the bed and change . . ."

"No," she said firmly, "You lost that privilege when you held me at knife-point. I need to see your hands at all times. However, if it brings you any comfort, I'm already familiar with your particular anatomy."

His mouth flapped open in alarm like a beached fish. Shepard had no idea what to do with his hands as they roamed around his body in a vain attempt to shield himself from view.

"Okay, you have me at a serious disadvantage right now."

"Why? Because I have seen you naked? I'm not enjoying this anymore than you do. Finish this now or I will hand-cuff you and drag you out by our teeth. It doesn't make any difference to me."

He groaned in frustration.

"Fine! But can you at least give me a bit more space?"

She nodded eventually, going a few paces back. Shepard hesitated again, pleading silently with his eyes for a reprieve.

"Just get on with it."

"Crap." No such luck.

He took a deep, stilling breath before reaching around back to undo the remaining harnesses. He shut his eyes tight as the gown dropped to his feet and a breeze sliced through his vulnerable body. Shepard reached out blindly for the stack of new clothes, fumbling and nearly tripping to put them on. In the darkness, he tried to scrub and purge the turian's image out of his mind to no avail.

Through his sense of touch, he could tell it was a simple T-shirt and jeans, along with a jacket padded with the softest synthetic material ever. He blotted out the briefs from his mind. There was no way the turian military had these sort of clothes lying around. These clothes must have belonged to some human long dead.

He sniffed the jacket for blood but smelled only old-fashioned water and soap.

When Shepard opened his eyes again, he resorted to staring at his feet to avoid looking into Solana's eyes. He didn't know if he ever could.

"Come on. Let's get moving. Get these on too."

She placed his pair of old Alliance boots accommodatingly at his toes.

"We couldn't find another . . . casing with the right size for you."

"Appreciate it," he nodded somberly.

"Alright. Get ahead of me. I'll tell you where to go."

"Fine by me."

Decked out in a mismatched set of clothing, he began to shuffle forward. The barrel of her pistol jabbed into his lower back, reminding him of his situation as he warily hobbled out of the cabin. At first, the firelight was too blinding to make anything out as they walked down the porch. Squinting, he edged forward.

"Where to?" he asked slowly, his head turned slightly off to the side.

"Turn left." Shepard followed through immediately, turning in the direction of the fire gleaming through the tree-tops down the hill.

 _Damn it! What kind of forest fire is there?_

Shepard recognized the shapes of other turians around him, leaning against cabins like dark specters. It was casual enough but the intent was clear: he wasn't leaving. An odd musical lull sent confused notes swinging through the air. He paused and Solana obviously sensed it.

"Keep walking." It was probably meant to sound like a threat but it was mysteriously devoid of any energy.

He obeyed, if only to understand the input his brain was receiving. As he marched along with whatever dignity he had left, he tried to put words to the music but he was utterly mystified. He had had heard many genre's before, old and new, but nothing could be tentatively compared to it. A string of words crossed his mind and his brain immediately warmed up to the description: harmony of dissonance.

As if on cue, the moonlight began to beat back the fiery sun in front of him.

As they climbed to the top of a small hill, the world seemed to open up around them.

 _Whoa,_ was his only coherent thought as they presided over a massive pavilion in the valley. The roaring fire that had blinded him for so long was at the center of it. The camp seemed to be alive with activity as a crowd of turians swayed slightly around the fire. There were others on roof-tops, balconies, and porches. A flag waved in the breeze near the fire. The humming seemed to intensify but John could not figure out where it was coming from.

Then, Solana made a soft noise deep in her throat until it changed to the sound of the humming. The dissonance suddenly turned to full-on harmony, but it sounded more like keening, depressing and jagged with sorrow. Her eyes seemed like dark pools in the moonlight, the molten gold reverting to a hazy yellow.

 _Did I just wake up to a cult?_

One by one, a small procession of figures wearing hoods began to approach the pole holding the flag. On the far side of the camp, singing began to take place of the humming. Slowly, the hauntingly beautiful alien lyrics spread through the masses until Solana Vakarian joined in. The turians John saw earlier approached behind them and joined in as well.

The tone of the singing reminded Shepard of the old tapes of Gregorian chants that his archaeologist father used to own. It was just another thing he had to let go because of this war. A heart-breaking sorrow seized him as the song progressed.

The figures began to take down the flag with every yank of the rope. When it was successfully lowered, they tore it down from its perch and began to roll it up with agonizing precision. John managed to make out what was written on it before it was lost from sight.

 _Die For the Cause_

The small procession simultaneously took off their hoods, facing the bonfire. Shepard couldn't make out much about their features being so close to the fire but one thing was clear. None of them had any crest of horns. The back of the procession began transferring the flag overhead to the next person until it reached the lead.

The singing stopped and in unison, the turians made a strange claw-like gesture over their hearts before the flag was tossed into the fire.

For a few moments, there was no sound other than the fire consuming its meal and the gentle night breeze. Slowly but surely, the turians began to resume whatever their daily activities were. Solana turned around to face the turians who joined them and nodded. They responded with some sort of military salute before heading out. Shepard didn't realize he had his mouth slanted open in a mix of confusion and intrigue.

A headache had been gripping him since the moment he had stood which only seemed to strengthen as he faced her at a loss for words. Solana chuckled, echoes chasing after each other in a lilting manner. She seemed oddly pleased at his flabbergasted expression. John found his voice again only moments later.

"Forgive the insubordination but do you guys have anything to eat? Human . . . food?" He swallowed hard as if taking a swig of lemon juice. "God, I'm really thirsty. Some . . . some water would be really nice."

She tilted her head slightly, contemplating his request.

"We do. Come on, follow me."

They took step after step down to the bottom of the rise and approached the camp. Turians stared after them long after they passed, faintly murmuring at their backs. He tried to manage an apologetic expression but to no avail. As they walked, the cabins seemed to loom above them. He noticed how utterly massive they were up close.

 _What kind of operation is Solana in charge of?_

The emerald green grass began to give way to dirt as they approached the bonfire which was being doused by the same hooded figures from before who were chatting between themselves adamantly in fluent English, voices free of any sort of tremor.

Solana approached one of them and put a hand on the figure's shoulder. "There's someone you need to meet," she said, swinging the figure towards him. One of the other hooded figures tapped his comrade on the shoulder to get his attention, pointing at Shepard.

John staggered back as if he had just been slugged. _They were all human!_

The man who had been swiveled over to him had a jaw-dropped expression as well, the beginning of tears brimming behind his round spectacles. At first, Shepard thought he was staring into the eyes of a stranger.

 _Wait, glasses? The only person who would wear something as ridiculous as that was . . ._

"Dad?"

"Jonathan?!" The man's voice was choked with unbridled relief as he shrugged off his coat.

The younger Shepard found himself racing forward into his open arms, tears already making landfall by the time he arrived into his father's embrace. It seemed like everything melted away around them as he sobbed tears of joy into the man's shoulder. His jacket smelled faintly of the cigars he used to smoke. Maybe it was the exhaustion and hunger, maybe it was the sheer impact of overwhelming relief that almost made him faint.

"Wow, you look a little worse for wear," the man joked, pulling away slightly, but his eyes turned steely.

John laughed breathlessly, patting him in the back. "Easy for you to say. I thought you were dead." The man grinned infectiously and shook his head, re-adjusting his glasses.

"Oh, I probably would have been but Solana came in and rescued me. Rescued all of us as a matter of fact," he said, gesturing behind him.

Again, John stared slack-jawed at the turian and instantly, he felt like the world's biggest dick. The feeling of guilt was accompanied with sickening apprehension . . . and a flicker of hope.

"What about mom? Did . . . did she survive?"

Pain gleamed in his eyes as he shook his head.

"Hannah . . . your mother. She was in orbit over Shanxi, sentry duty over the protecting fleet. As far as we know, her ship was shot down in the initial assault. John, I'm so sorry."

Shepard bit his lip which easily began to bleed from dehydration. "I should have been there. If I hadn't run off with the Alliance . . ."

"You would have died."

"I know. I know. Look, I'm sorry for what I said before. I was selfish and stupid . . . and . . . and."

Adam pulled him in for another embrace and John was immediately silenced.

"It's forgiven."

His father held him out at arm's length and smiled warmly.

"Let me get a good look at you. Damn, you look my age now."

Shepard chuckled and offered the first genuine, carefree grin he had given since the invasion. "Trust me, I'm feeling it too."

After some time was spent basking in the moment, Solana stepped forward, talons interlocked with oddly sharp tension.

"Adam, could you go show your son over to the feast? You can explain the ceremony to him. I have something to attend to."

"Oh, of course. And then you can catch me up on the past six months and I get to introduce you to the entire crew," Adam said, letting go and pointing at John.

"There are others!?" Shepard sputtered.

"Oh yeah. Solana organized an entire evacuation trying to save as many as possible. We owe the turians here a great debt."

The other humans joined his father and an instant furious conversation took place. It all seemed to fade away when John caught wind of Solana's expression. Rather, it was her mandibles that quavered like leaves in a storm.

"Solana . . . I'm so sorry. God, I feel like such a . . ."

"You didn't know. I probably would have been just as wary as you," she said in an unexpectedly even voice.

"Listen . . . about what I said in that cabin . . ."

"We're even now, just so you know," she said, a thin measure of levity coloring her mandibles.

 _Is she teasing me now?_

"Sure thing." he swallowed. His ears were probably turning pink right about now.

She nodded over to the human commotion behind her. "It's something for another time. Go, be with your father. Make amends. We'll work out your punishment at a later time."

Shepard was in the process of hugging her before he amended with an outstretched hand. Solana regarded him for a few moments before slowly wrapping her talons around his and shook. For some odd reason, the feel of her three digits on his felt _right,_ a far cry from that moment long ago. Their hands pulled away at the same time but that same tingling sensation lingered like perfume on his palm.

"I should go." It was more like he was trying to convince himself.

"Wait!" she said almost desperately, grabbing hold of his forearm. He was about to protest when she slapped a device on his arm, the same golden holographic interface leaping to life like the ones he saw other turians use.

"I was able to upgrade your old device into an Omni-tool. Should have all your files accounted for. Your old contacts and information should be there as well."

She paused a little, her mandibles reflecting sudden discontentment.

"I will, however, be monitoring any calls you make. Obviously, all weapon and minifacturing capabilities have been disabled. Any sign that you are trying to jeopardize this operation, I will cut off all access to your device and then I'll kill you. Basic guideline: Don't say anything specific. Understood?"

Initially, anger boiled in the soldier's gut but he knew that this simple privilege would have been unthinkable back in that installation. It was a risky, maybe stupid choice but he felt compelled to honor it.

"Yeah. Thanks . . . I think."

"Take care, Shepard."

His father began to wave him over and the two went their separate ways. As John followed the small procession, he found himself absentmindedly rubbing his palm with his thumb.

If the soldier had turned around at that exact same moment, he would have found Solana gazing after him, rubbing her mandibles as if they were causing her pain. One thought floated into her mind, doing one-eighties and wheelies from one organic faculty to another.

 _Spirits, why . . . out of all the people in the galaxy . . . does he remind me of my brother_?


	6. Chapter 3: Growing Darkness

**Chapter 3: Growing Darkness**

 **December 24th, 2157**

 **Shanxi, Fairwater Basin**

"Work, son of a bitch! Ahh, hijo de puta!" The last syllable came out with a great puff of steam and sweat. The monkey wretch landed with a dull clang on the titanium hull of the Mark IV Mako. Whatever language or tool he tossed at the wreckage, the spiteful tank crouched there like an indomitable asshole. The marine stepped back, wiping his brow and attempting to air out his soaked undershirt before it snapped back onto him like a rubber band. Like with most war machines, he didn't care how the gun fires, only if it can do its job properly. It was clear nothing else was going to be done so he yanked a rag from his pocket and plopped down onto a crate.

 _I'm insane. The Normandy isn't going to wait around any longer. Sooner or later, those heat sinks are going to blow out and the Normandy is going to light up like a fucking Christmas tree on every sensor! Shepard is gone._

He certainly wasn't going to ride in, chewing skull-faces up with hot balls of lead without some sort of plan. No, not at all; no matter how much the idea appealed to him. So far, the mental light bulb remained elusive so he was forced to bury himself in the only wreck that could give them a brief edge. Alliance resources were stretched thin so they were limited to a broken down tank that hissed and sputtered like a cat whenever anybody came close. As Gunnery Chief of the Normandy, this was his problem despite the crew's protests.

James Marcus de la Vega was no mechanic and more importantly, he was no savior. The man couldn't save his comrade; _no,_ a friend from himself. There was a deadly promise in the way Shepard conducted himself ever since the attack on Shanxi. Little by little, he saw the broken light swaying in his comrade's eyes and it was goddamn frightening. Like a good soldier, the bastard covered his tracks well. There was no grounds on which to report him because his duties were performed splendidly. In the end, that's all the Navy cared about. They were all hit hard by the first wave, but Shepard's hostility only mounted from there. James knew he was close to his old man, in a way that Anderson never could be for him. Damn it, he should have reported it to the captain. Their prior relationship as mentor and student would have been enough to warrant a breather.

 _Whatever happened down there, Jona most likely wanted it to happen._

As soon as the thought occurred to him, he banished it to the depths of his mental black box. Shepard wasn't the kind of person that would drop dead at the hands of a skull-face, and he certainly wasn't going to give himself over to the freaks. James couldn't deny the encroaching feeling that his own faith in Shepard was eating away at him. What had started out as a crutch had begun to disable him; cloud his judgement. James failed to act on the evidence, he turned a blind eye to a comrade laboring well beyond the fumes had been exhausted. He was like an N7 without the title . . . and the common sense.

"Fucking idiot," he groused under his labored breathing. Hell, he was probably as dead as the N7 operative they were looking for.

The loudspeaker in the cargo bay crackled to life, jolting him out of his stupor.

"Vega, report to the bridge. Captain's waiting for you," their resident ace pilot called out. It was a bad sign when Joker sounded deadly serious. Pushing the bad omen aside, he jogged to the elevator and stabbed the keys. The lift had a way of making you want to cut the tension, mostly because the ride up lasted so goddamn long. He was alone though, and his imagination ran wild, wondering what the captain had summoned him up for.

Vega already knew the reason, deep in his gut but he wouldn't dare confirm it himself.

The CIC was dimly lit when he strode out of the claustrophobic prison, the monochromatic surfaces of the communications table shining a glowing red from the emergency back-up lights. Until further notice, the Normandy was running on minimal power so as not to tax the eezo capacitors. The more pertinent detail however was the lack of souls in the room. Navigator Pressly's station was unmanned, and the guard posts had been abandoned. If this was a meeting, then the comm table was the place to be so where the hell was everybody?

 _Seriously, this better not be a surprise party. Not in the fucking mood._

At the end of the long hall, the cockpit seemed to be deprived of its loyal inhabitant. Joker rarely left his swiveling chair, which he affectionately christened as "Leather Lord." Apparently, this was his idea of an joke, citing it as the whole reason behind not getting up in the morning because _"he commands it!"_ He could never be caught dead using a wheelchair or even crutches whenever he came to the mess hall. He must have shooed off poor Dr. Chakwas more times than were stars in the whole galaxy. Those particular tools were rusting somewhere in storage. Joker probably intended to keep it that way. In the end, he was a soldier like the rest of him, poor taste in jokes aside.

James strode to the other end of the ship, bypassing the checkpoint and armory.

Again, the mic crackled back to life.

"Sorry, we're in the war room. Ow, don't take my hat."

The door opened to said room and Joker settled himself back into his wheelchair with a pained expression, rubbing the side of his head. James was terrified from having been stood corrected. The fire alarm would been next to nothing compared to this.

"Over here, James," the chief artificer, Gabby, called out him. The Normandy was the first of its class, designed to run with a minimal crew detail but that didn't mean you could stuff them all in one room.

Nevertheless, he stomped over, realizing how greasy he must look. Whatever Anderson needed, it was addressing the entire crew, even Joker who had a hard time making it to the mess hall on bad days. To save everyone from the reek of sweat, he leaned against a bulkhead and crossed his arms, regarding the proceedings with a sinking feeling.

Captain Anderson stood next to Joker (flanking him was Dr. Chakwas) who was briefly looking out at the snowy expanse of Fairwater basin from the wide nano-carbon windows. There was a tension between all of them as the crew waited with bated breaths for their captain to speak.

After a few moments, he turned away and studied each and all of them with a faint hint of sad pride.

"I've gathered you all here today, to announce a decision." For a brief moment, Anderson hesitated and the alarm bells ringing in everybody's head was palpable. He took a deep breath but the inner turmoil remained. "A failure I did not make lightly. You've all performed remarkably well in this covert mission into hostile territory. Your efficiency and dedication is commendable. However, I'm ordering all of you to desist current operations and to report back to your stations for lift-off."

The polite rigidity of basic military discipline vanished as murmurs and faint cries broke out among the crew.

James muscled his way through the crowd, blood roaring in his ears. "This is bullshit! We can't leave Shepard behind!" he cried out from above the litany of confusion, not even caring about the unfair insubordination he was showing. This was becoming too real, too fast.

"Stop," Anderson grunted underneath his breath.

"He's practically your son! How could you think of abandoning him?"

"Stop!" Anderson roared and everybody went still.

Anderson looked damn well near to throttling the nearest person which would be unfortunate for Joker. He smoothed the bronze buttons of his Alliance Uniform and cleared his throat.

"I know this has all dealt you a serious blow but I will not tolerate insubordination on this ship. We are pioneers for the Alliance and we are going to keep it that way. Now, all power has been rerouted to critical life-support systems and artificial gravity. We'll need to tighten our belts but that gives us about ten hours before we'll absolutely need to vent the core. If not, we face an engine meltdown and we will have broken the tip of the spear ourselves. I wish to spare you all from that embarrassment."

Vega recognized that mask. That forced masquerade of military decorum. Jesus, was he the only one? Why weren't the others fighting this? He locked eyes with Ashley, an accusing glare written into his features. She turned away . . . no, flinched underneath the stare, confirming the worst in Vega's mind. They all had accepted it. Bastards had probably been deliberating on this for quite some time behind his back.

He shifted his gaze to Anderson, fixing him with the coldest expression he could muster. His boiling blood was suppressed by the clammy grip of Sergeant Williams. She looked on the verge of tears.

"Please, don't make this any harder."

"You . . . of all people, nursing a crush for Christ's sake! Why?" he demanded.

Alenko stepped in, drawing him away from Ashley's shock with a firm shake of his shoulder. He wasn't sure if it was supposed to be comforting."There is nothing any of us can say that will make this right. In no universe will this ever be okay but we can't suffer any more losses. We're not going to risk another soul on this ship to reach the same fate."

The sudden pressure on Vega's shoulder confirmed one other thing. Stand down, or there would be consequences. Like a good little soldier, he knew when he was defeated in the chain of command.

Any form of resistance had backed down immediately and he retracted slowly through the crowd, realizing how dire the situation was. In reality, they should have left several hours ago in order to make it to the relay unexposed. Anderson had been delaying and pushing the envelope for as long as he could. Still didn't make this right though.

"Dismissed."

The crowd dispersed unevenly and Ashley was hugging her shoulders as if she were about to be sick. Joker's unfailing brand of innocent humor had flickered out in front of him. The pilot looked crestfallen, swiveling around in his chair in a heartbeat. For a moment, he thought he saw the briefest of tears shining in his wandering gaze.

Ken, Presley, and James were the last to leave the cockpit. Numb and undead, he trudged off to his original post.

No matter if you were civilian or a soldier, it always helped to have closure. It certainly didn't help that they were running away with their tails between their legs. If the skull-faces didn't get to Shepard first, he was going to damn well wring out his stringy neck himself. James would return at the next possible chance just to achieve that. The vow gave him some strength and hope.

There was a faint whirring sound and he paused in the CIC, looking around dumbly. Nobody else seemed to have heard it.

The noise started up again and he noticed a red marker light up on his Omni tool. He frowned cautiously, pulling up the display to see the notification.

 _No, it couldn't be. No, that would be too easy._

"Hey, I've got a transmission over here."

Everybody turned towards him, confused and scratching their heads in disbelief.

"That is impossible. Nothing's been able to get past the noise curtain." Anderson snapped, his frame leaning heavily over the galaxy map display.

"I don't know how, sir but it says its coming from . . . . _oh dios_!"

The crew began to edge closer in anticipation as his hands flew over the console.

"What?" the captain nearly growled in desperation.

"It's Shepard, sir! The signal is bad but I'm patching him through to the comm system."

A wave of chattering suddenly surged through the CIC but they all immediately ducked for cover as shrill static erupted from the loudspeakers. James squeezed the volume button until there was no immediate concern that the noise would blow up their heads.

"Can the VI clean this up?" Anderson called to one of the technicians but their activities were all stopped as the static vanished and a voice came through.

Only, it wasn't human.

* * *

If in the realm of possibility, someone managed to distill the stuff of dreams creeping around in her head, the galaxy would go supernova in a heartbeat. She recognized the tell-tale signs of insanity, the whispering in her skull like an itch in the crook of her mandibles that she couldn't scratch. It took all her willpower to keep a straight composure when she excused herself from the human.

Foolish. Dull-witted. Idiotic, FUCKING amnesia!

Her talons ached to tear into one of her subordinates. The first tangible sign of progress she had made with this dense, irksome primitive, and it had to be ruined by the vacuous dolt that "saved" her. That man was lying somewhere in the infirmary, she had made sure of that. Still nobody understood their real purpose on this crater.

She flexed her talons slowly, clenching and un-clenching until the sub-dermal layer felt the ghost of pain under the stress.

Spirits, she needed to get a grip. Over the din of blood roaring in her ears, the briefly dormant demon within stirred from it's slumber to antagonize her anew..

 _No, don't rear your head now._

"Commander, are you alright?"

She blinked out of her stupor, barely realizing the menacing growl rippling through her chest. The humans were long gone, bearing to the pavilion in all likelihood. Nevertheless, Solana trained her waspish demeanor on the interruption.

"I'm fine, Lieutenant," Vakarian snarled brusquely. Sub-harmonically, she stated, _You are the last bag of bones I wanted to see tonight._

Victus, in true placating manner, tied his wrists behind his back and bared his throat. "Easy, Commander. Don't kill the messenger."

Booming laughter suddenly erupted from down the hill, drawing the gazes of both turians warily. When no other suspicious noises made itself known, the Lieutenant turned back to his superior.

"Mordin asked me to tell you to refrain from adding anything else to his workload. Something about blood cultures and tissue samples. I think it's safe to say you're officially beginning to tucker out our resident salarian."

She nodded demurely, tugging at the collar of her vest. "Duly noted." It was a clear attempt at an icebreaker so she let him off easy, if only for her sake.

"Permission to speak freely, ma'am?"

"Granted." The word came out quickly and without thought. Better to let someone voice their concerns than have a knife sticking out of your back.

For a few moments, the shadow of silence lengthened around them. The insect-life characteristically chirped onward, obliviously chewing on pieces of grass and clinging to the shrubs around them. Though their clicking lacked the sophistication to form complex messages, a hard-pressed translation yielded the same word repeatedly.

 _"Help."_ It also could have been easily confused with _"food."_

A loud sigh finally brought her attention back up to him. His sub-vocals took on a low, uncertain tone, drowning out the illiterate insects. The craggy muscles underneath his plates revealed a burning tension.

"I'm sorry."

Victus paused, as if waiting for a good whack. When no response was forthcoming, he rambled on.

"When that primitive held you hostage, I could barely keep myself from intervening. Of all the-"

"That intervention cost me an ally, Tarquin."

"That's not how the recruits see it. Letting him run amok will only cost you more."

"What do you suggest?" she snapped at him, raising the oblong spout of the half-forgotten bottle to her mandibles, letting it trickle down into her thirsting maw. Tarquin's eyes visibly widened at the _Horosk_ as if it were vile and unfitting for her character. She was driven by a singular brand of poison and it wasn't fermented grain.

 _How easy that would have been in comparison._

Victus gave a near imperceptible shake of his head. "Ah, a show of dominance. There's already been talk that you're acting too subservient to the humans. Colorful language aside, we can't have an uprising so close to the blackout."

Her eyebrow plates furrowed.

"Who is 'they?' I'm starting to think no such thing exists except your own subversion. My men are nothing short of loyal. I pulled them from the depths of poverty and piracy, those who the Hierarchy deemed "undesirables." All of these "bare-faces" are loyal to me," she raised the glass in mock contemplation and pointed with one outstretched talon towards Tarquin. "All except you."

She peered at him from the corner of her eyes, stalking through every expression that crossed Tarquin's plates. He stared, at a loss for words, at her outstretched finger with disbelieving eyes.

"Now, tell me. Why is that?""

He sputtered. "Commander, what in the depths of _Buratrum_ are you talking about?"

"You've sabotaged my efforts at every opportunity. Now, I'm starting to wonder if Arterius put you up to this. Maybe you simply stepped aside as he took dozens of our refugees. I told you to keep the men back. That was your only job. I need the information in Shepard's fool head," she pointed at her own skull for emphasis in a rising tone, "but the smallest measure of trust I managed to instill in him has been undone yet again."

The last part came out as a guttural growl, her tone seeping dangerously low. To her surprise, Victus stepped forward, the helplessness that came over his sub-vocals overwhelmed her.

"Please, tell me what I could have done. You must believe it was never my intention to undermine your leadership or the integrity of this camp. But if you're asking to me to walk away every time you put your life in the hands of a maniac . . . I'm sorry . . . . I can't. If that makes me weak or unworthy, than I gladly accept the punishment."

He had stripped his sub harmonics of all safeguards, baring the flux of his emotions to the air. Naked, vulnerable but most of all, hopelessly baffeled. Her stance shifted, relaxing the confrontational demeanor that had blanketed her body language.

"Look, we've known each other since the mandatory age of recruitment." He had closed the remaining distance between them, cutting off her response, as he gently gripped her forearms. "Come on, let me take you up to your cabin, see if we can't wash out the intoxication."

It was as if something snapped.

"What did you say?"

"Your drunk." He stated, a hint of confusion decorating his slightly flared mandibles, shaking his head ever so slightly. There was clearly no thought or care that had been put behind that simple phrase. Victus hadn't cared to notice how it had undermined the issues brought to the table, as if what they touched on could be explained away by a bottle.

The flair of biotics wrapped around her fists as they shot forward and yanked at his collar. A brief squeak and an instinctual gulp rounded out of Tarquin's inarticulate mouth. The female turian pulled him towards her and bent him shamefully low like a mother dragging a disobedient child by the mandibles. Her breathing was labored and steaming against the fused, vulnerable hide of his throat. Their skulls were almost parallel to each other. There was a time when Vakarian would have found the musty scent of a male's vulnerable throat excitable. Instead, her dual-toned strings thrummed and pounded her fury straight into his ear canal while his panic quivered into her own.

"Get out of my sight!" she seethed, giving his shoulder a biotically empowered thrust. Victus stumbled backwards, clutching his wounded pride in shock. In the same motion, he turned and sauntered away.

"And tell whoever 'they' are to go fuck themselves!" The human expletive was foreign on her tongue and the word clashed greatly with her refined Trebian accent. The vulgarity of it mildly surprised her.

Her spine suddenly stiffened and her knuckles tightened at her sides. It seemed as if the world had grown cold. She would have dismissed it as another temperamental episode of the planet's weaker atmosphere . . . if it weren't for the stray talon that ran through the tender outcropping of her skull. Had it not been for sheer terror, she would have swatted away any contact in that area. For her own sake, she didn't want to remember.

"Spirits, always a pleasure to watch you work."

She could feel Saren's hot breath seething out from between bony stalactites, his incisors could not have been hovering more than a mere centimeter off her throat. Again, he thumbed the severed roots of her head-horns, harder this time.

"Come on, we have no secrets between us. What have you done to yourself this time?"

Solana began to shake, the memory of Mordin's little surgical saw through the haze of anesthesia ripping through her once again. She had hoped that the details would be intangible but it soon became clear that the morphine was more like a vain attempt to dampen her senses. Though she hung immobile, it had only served to cage her within her own mind. She was powerless when the saw proved no match to her mutations. She was powerless as the dull twang of metal shook her skull, a blade hacking off at bleeding head-horns.

"You aren't real," she said through gritted teeth.

He leaned in beside her skull, his words no more than a hushed whisper. "No, but I can be silenced . . . if you let me in."

The pressure shifted towards her hips. With paralyzing dread, she looked down as two monstrous hands emerged from either side, watching as they slipped out of view and in between her legs.

"You are mine. You were always mine. Stop and realize it!"

With a tortured howl, she cried, "YOU DID THIS TO ME!"

Vakarian rounded on him, only to be grasping at thin air. She was panting in a mixture of rage, arousal, and helplessness. This apparition . . . It had felt more real than ever. This was Stage 4. When the next wave started . . . it would all be over.

She clutched at her skull, barely withholding a sob. With trembling legs, she took a seat in the dew-ridden grass. What sounded like the bastard child between a hiccup and a groan escaped her clacking maw. She scrabbled at the earth underneath her for an anchor as if this fantasy was going to rip her out of the fabric of reality. Her talons closed around a piece of torn leather. It didn't take long to figure it out. The straps of her casual slacks were gone, ripped apart more like. At this fact, she instantly recoiled, falling back onto her shoulders.

 _Spirits, I've got to get out of here._

With a wild look in her eyes, she swept her gaze across the entire field with paranoia.

Shaken to the core, she rose. "I'm sorry, Shepard. Looks like we won't get to have a proper introduction." Saren had already robbed her of the choice months ago. Now he was forcing her hand. The plan would have to be accelerated.

She hitched up her pants and rapidly scrolled through her omni-tool and dialed in the frequency. It was past time to set things in motion. She raised the omni-tool to her face, suppressing a shudder as she addressed the entire crew of the Normandy.

"You may not know who I am or what is about to happen. I pray you decipher this message in time. In a few days, a ship will be coming your way and there will be a lot of hungry people looking for a new home. You might recognize them as friends . . . family. Consider this a revolution. Vakarian, Out."

 _What was that quote from one of Adam's movie nights?_

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

 _I like how you humans think._

* * *

Rumbling tremors. The remnants of an Earthquake long past or one yet to come. A sound that drowned out all else as if demanding submission over its inhabitants.

When had this white noise become so much of a sweet lullaby for him? The way it rocked him into a drunken-like stupor? When his world had shattered below him, shrouded underneath cover of heat and ash?

A murmur nudged its way into Shepard's brief spell but did not break it. He moved forward mechanically, marching to the pavilion, ignoring the eager but hushed voices pressing in, peering at him like a long-lost Messiah. The brief annoyance reminded him of wasps, the way a turians mandibles grit themselves together in preparation for the next meal. The way Solana had looked at him in that cabin. It was just a hint of their predatory ancestry, the same danger that drove him forward.

A worn hand latched onto his shoulder and the rumbling cocoon around him was broken. Shepard jolted but only slightly, furrowing his eyebrows at the concerned expression on his father's face.

 _His_ father. Dad.

It hadn't really sunk in for him yet. The concept was jarring to say the least. The elder Shepard's eyes still had that familiar twinkle, the way he always looked with pride at his collections, pointing each of them out to him, explaining their historical significance. For others, the history lesson may have bored them to tears but Shepard was fascinated with tales of great battles and lost civilizations. They were ancient and alien to him, an old way of life that meant nothing to the human race today. The same way the turians were to him right now.

The explorer's nudge, he called it. Now, in Jonathan's experience, it was just an excuse to get your nose chopped off for sniffing too closely.

"You okay? It'd be good to get some food in you but if you really need to rest, I'll understand, alright?"

A hint of resentment welled up within John, the way his father was treating him like broken glass. He had to remind himself it wasn't his fault. They were worlds apart by now but Shepard was sure he didn't want him to experience what he had in such a short amount of time. Had it really been only a year?

As his father's hand absentmindedly brushed his nose as he sniffed, Shepard noticed the tell-tale sign of age creeping up on him. The popping veins weaving through his wrinkled hand betrayed his twilight years, though some of the new scars reminded him of forced labor.

There was that anger again.

Adam must have noticed it because he slung his arm around him. Shepard nodded and smiled sheepishly, eyeing the way his father was gently rubbing the halved silver ring slung around his finger. It was a symbol of his commitment to their family, which at the time was near non-existent. Now John was pretty much it.

"You know, I think it's good to have her around. Solana, I mean. You can trust her. She'll protect you where I can't. I'm sure of it."

He could make no dignified response to that without sounding like a moody teenager all over again. John simply gave a small squeeze of acknowledgement but immediately let go of his father, his troubled and haunted expression remaining long afterwards.

John cursed slightly underneath his breath. Where was this anger coming from? This place was really getting under his skin somehow. His attitude with Vakarian was totally justified, his father much less so. This was no place to bring old skeletons out of the closet. He couldn't fuck up the one thing he had gotten back from his past.

At that moment, Shepard decided; they were getting out of here, alive, and to safety with or without Solana's help. In spite of her even, if it came to that. Nothing else mattered. Though, the logical part of his brain chimed on, could there be any truly "safe" place for humanity to hold out, for those cowering back home? And the thousand others under the iron grip of their alien overlords?

And what about the other colonists? Could he lead them to safety, light years away from any safe harbor? It clicked to him that some of these colonists might never make it out. There were children here, thrust into this mess before they could even walk. When the running starts, and he imagined it will, the weakest would always get trampled in this cruel world of grit and pain.

Fuck. Fuck. Double Fuck.

He shook his head, taking a calming breath to rid himself of the image.

"We're here," his father loudly proclaimed.

* * *

Solana must have had a very dated definition of "feast." In reality, dinner consisted of reconstituted MRE's and local flaura boiled down into a tasteless paste. It was probably too much to ask for bacon. He inhaled it nonetheless. Shepard had barely come up for air before the colonists pelted him with questions. Questions about the war. Shepard had barely realized how long they had been out of the loop.

The golden light of the lanterns swinging overhead danced across their eager, expectant faces as they pressed in around him like children begging for a bedtime story. As if they dared to expect it would be good news . . .

How can you tell average people that their species was not doing good, that every colony world from the Charon Relay to just short of the Arcturus system was overrun, that there was no "safe" place left except for Earth while sophisticated machines, not humanity, was responsible for keeping the turians at bay for as long as it did? How do you even begin to convey that sense of hopelessness to a bunch of fresh civilians hanging on to your every word?

That didn't stop him from trying.

In the end, he settled for vagueness. Shepard provided non-committal details where possible. Otherwise, he was like a politician through and through. He only told them about the operation to take back Shanxi to which many of the colonists whooped and jeered to but as the hours dragged on, the crowd began to disperse, scratching the back of their necks, probably with a sense of emptiness nagging them doggedly.

Bloated from the amount of water he had consumed, Shepard banged his head against the table theatrically with a tired groan. Public speaking always made him dehydrated.

Shepard blinked back his surprise at finding his father still staring at him expectantly as he groggily raised his head from the meal tray. Had he even yawned once? Shepard couldn't remember but he zeroed in on a frightening expression simply because it was still so animated with attentiveness.

It had begun to snow again. The chill had undoubtedly remained but all around the dimly-lit pavilion, snow flakes began to emerge from the darkness outside, blowing in with the sharp gust that passed through. Shanxi was known to be a more polar planet during it's seasons. In the summer, it was unbelievably hot to the point that outside work detail was limited to part-time shifts. Sandstorms and blizzards were not an uncommon sight this side of the continent. It was beautiful.

His father pointed all around him with a childish wonder. He leapt up from his seat and chuckled briefly.

"All this talk and I nearly forgot to show you your gift, if you're still up for it."

"Wait? What day is it?"

"Come on, it's Christmas Eve! Don't tell me you're that out of the loop."

"I've been busy."

 _Nearly dying_ , his war brain chimed in.

"Come on. That can wait till morning, Dad."

"Oh well, anything else you want to gush about?"

Shepard huffed good-naturedly. "Other than the fact that you look like a goddamn corpse? No, I have nothing else to say."

He smiled, the wrinkles treading familiar ground over his laugh lines.

"Tell me, is there finally a girl in a picture?"

"Dad, you know fraternizing in the Alliance is strictly forbidden!" Shepard laughed.

He leaned forward in a mock conspiratorial manner, his palm facing outwards from the edge of his lips. "I don't think a connection is illegal, now is it?" His crooked glasses only served to augment his mischievous demeanor.

John smiled again, but the pleasantry was forced. He found his drink a little more difficult to swallow.

"Can't say I've had plans in that sector."

The elder Shepard rolled his eyes at him, taking an uncharacteristically long slurp of water. "Trust me, no-one does."

"Well, there was one. Right after I thought I lost you. A field medic was patching me up and . . . we really hit it off. There was some plans or other to meet up back at Arcturus, can't remember exactly. When she never arrived, I started asking around. Turns out she had died two weeks earlier in a bombing run, along with a dozen others."

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh."

The dryness with which he had said it shocked him. Was he so determined to be miserable? War brain was not going to fuck this up. Whatever happened, he could at least enjoy this for as long as he could.

Which wasn't long after all.

Adam rubbed his chin and leaned back slightly, exhaling with feeling. "I mean, I knew your mother's line of work could be dangerous. I just didn't know how much."

"It wasn't. At least, she could handle the common rabble. Thieves, pirates . . . But the turians," John whistled, "they're in a whole league of their own."

"She was a good woman," he winked at him over a sip of water, "and excellent in bed too."

John slapped him on the shoulder jokingly, recoiling with mild disgust. "Dad!" he groaned before bursting into a fit of giggles.

"Come on, you're what? Twenty-five years old? Just wondering when I'm going to get those grand-kids of yours. I'm not getting any younger."

"Tell you what. If we make it out of this alive, you can have all the grand-kids you want, alright?"

"When," he corrected with a slight nudge. "When we make it out of this."

"Right."

They shared a comfortable bout of silence as they sipped their water.

"Is it bad?" He had said this so timidly that the snow threatened to carry away his voice.

"What is?"

He cleared his throat. "Out there. I know what you told the rest but I need to hear it from you."

Jonathan would have preferred the accompaniment of a stiff drink to discuss this. Well, if he survived the interrogation earlier, he could certainly do this. Shepard set his drink down just in case.

"Jesus, I don't where to start. After they realized Shanxi wasn't our homeworld, the turians just began surging through the relays. The other colonies that haven't been invaded or captured are starving because we don't have enough resources. The Alliance is stretched too thin. It's only a matter of months before our lines collapse. When it does, I have no idea what will happen."

"I guess ol' Grissom was right all along. We activate these amazing, alien machines with physics-bending technology but sooner or later, we had to deal with the consequences of what lay beyond."

"Well, the explorers did find out one thing before they died. The turians weren't the ones who built the Mass Relays."

"No? I thought . . ."

"It's thousands of years older than them. The guys up in R&D call them Prometheans. Protheans, for short. We know next to nothing about them. The turians still hit hard though."

The elder Shepard shook his head in disbelief. "Have we at least tried peace?"

"They fired the first shot. Killed our explorers, enslaved our colonies, and killed off those that wouldn't submit. Something tells me we're just going to get shot in the back again if we try."

"Maybe things have changed? Solana tells me it was a simple misunderstanding-"

"And you trust a turian to honestly justify their actions? They don't know anything except a life behind the barrel of a gun. Turians don't think like we do and any similarity we can find is simply a false mimicry designed to lure us into our deaths. These guys are apex predators. They've honed their craft until its become a reflex to them. Nobody gets this good without endless years of war. Trust me, peace isn't an option. We can't stay here."

"So then, what do you suggest?" Adam leaned back on the seat, propping his foot on the wooden support structures of the table.

"Listen. I'm going to get us out of here. Whatever this is, we'll work it out together, all right? I'm hatching a plan. I just need a few days to work out the kinks.

"I bet Solana could help. I'm sure she'll listen to anything you have to say."

Baring his knuckles to his lips, Jonathan leaned forward in contrast.

"No. I don't mean with her. We're running away from her, remember?"

He couldn't believe his father had the audacity to look confused.

"Look, can't you wait a few days? I hear we're all going to get out of here anyway."

Jonathan found his patience worn to crisp as he tapped the table once with the edge of his open palm. "You've been here . . . what? Fourteen Months? How long are you going to wait around for a turian to fulfill her promise? We are fucking prisoners here. Nothing is Kosher around here and we are not sticking around to find out."

The rim of his glasses flashed as he whipped a dangerous glare in his direction. "Listen to me, she is going to get us out of here. Have some faith or at the very least, show some goddamn respect, son!"

Unperturbed, Jonathan rose ever further out of his seat. "I'm not the one lacking in respect," he hissed. "I, for one, respect their innate capacity to wreak havoc on all of our lives. I'm long done with them."

"At least Vakarian seems to care about our well being. As far as I know, the Alliance left us for dead without a second thought. "

His brow twitched. "Excuse me?"

It was clear that Jonathan had tapped into a hidden well of resentment as the elder Shepard reared back for another row.

"Admit it, we were abandoned here to fend for ourselves. The only one who offered us asylum wasn't even of our own species! Speaks volumes, doesn't it?"

"Listen to yourself! That siren is brainwashing you. We have exhausted every options to get this planet back while other colonies like these were swept away by them. Six years since I had left and I came home to a pile of ash and rubble. Do you have any idea how much my blood is boiling right now? Don't you dare dismiss the sacrifices of my comrades!"

"How about what I put on the line? Huh! Our sacrifice? It was three weeks that hundreds of us spent in a cramped bunker in the mountains with no power and dwindling supplies. By that time, the Alliance was long gone and we would have huddled there until it became a mass grave, hoping for hopes sake that someone would come back. When the turians broke through, the terror and the cold nearly got to us. I picked up a gun with every intention of defending that bunker to the last stand. They could've killed us all but they didn't. We got food and water, a roof over our heads, care for the wounded. The mercy they showed us was unlike anything we as a species were ever capable of in our violent history. Turians are better than us and it gets under your skin, is that it?"

"Right now, I don't give a shit that you're my father. If you want to piss on everything the Alliance stands for, you can stay here and cavort with the enemy. Go on, be my guest! Honestly, I'm happy you and Skull-face are getting along. You two deserve each other."

Thee movement was swift, and wholeheartedly unexpected. A brief flash of white knocked John back a few paces. His hand lightly touched the red welt on his cheek and he stared shocked up at his father. Fury, unlike anything else he had ever seen, coursed through his steely eyes, his backhand hovering in the air in front of him. Slowly, his hand morphed into a lone finger, stabbing into his chest once.

"If this is what the Alliance has borne out of my son . . ." he shook his head with disappointment. "You are not the son I raised. Your mother would be ashamed of you. What a disgrace," he spat and stormed off into the darkness.

Calculating the very moment his father was out of earshot, Shepard let the rage gush over the banks of his self-control. A measured fist cracked against faux mahogany. The splinters made his knuckles bleed but it was a sobering kind of pain.

Absolutely _nothing_ had changed. It was foolish to believe otherwise.

The sudden appearance of Victus wasn't enough to faze him. Tarquin nonchalantly leaned upon one of the columns, his arms crossed. For a few moments, the turian waited for him to make the first move. Shepard continued staring into the darkness, refusing to meet the challenge.

He snorted, unfazed. "How is that you managed to ruin several relationships in one night?"

Shepard raised his bleeding fist from the impact crater, flicking away embedded shards of wood.

"Yeah, thanks for the mirror, jack-ass."

* * *

 **A/N: And on that colorful note, I am terrible liar. I still remember the times that I used to cackle with glee at author's notes always citing studies as an update issue. Now I am one of those peasants. Woe upon all of us. I have no idea when I'll be able to update again but the story is definitely not on hiatus. I tend to work a little bit at a time until I've decided I have tinkered with it long enough as is the case with the dialogue in this chapter.**

 **2/18: Also, in response to one "guest" review, the offer is appreciated but . . . I can't contact you. Usually, I prefer to do these sort of things through PM but as I don't have an account to mail . . . . *shrugs shoulders* However, I do happen to be in need of a beta so if you can reach out to me again, that would be awesome.**

 **If you thought this chapter was kinda f* ked up, just wait till the next one. Trust me, there is a reason behind all of it.**

 **Happy late Valentine's day!**


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